Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan joined today Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians His Holiness Karekin II to attend the concluding ceremony of the World Youth Union of the Armenian Apostolic Church, which was attended by 400 Diaspora Armenians from over 20 countries.

Addressing the event, the Prime Minister stated in part, “Dear friends, sisters and brothers, it is a great pleasure for me to see you here in Armenia, in Yerevan. I am convinced that many in Armenia have felt the joy of seeing you walking down the streets of Yerevan. In general, in one of my Facebook posts - perhaps a year ago – I tried to describe my vision of future Armenia. The scene that I witnessed some time ago was very interesting. Two people on the sidewalk on Abovian Street spoke loudly to each other in Western Armenian and arranged to meet in the evening. It was really an epic sight, and it was a joyous sight because when we say that Armenia is the country to mobilize the pan-Armenian potential or its larger part on its territory and ensure the security and well-being of the majority of our people, it is not just an ideological issue for us. That is a problem we want to solve. We want you to bring this happiness more and more to the Republic of Armenia, to your homeland.

We want you to be here on the occasion of pilgrimage or without it, join your sisters, brothers, parents and relatives, stay longer, visit us more frequently and stay so long that we had to believe that you had not come to the country for some time, but rather that you should go back to the United States, Russia, Europe, Australia, Lebanon after a while. This is our problem, this is our goal, because the Republic of Armenia is the homeland of all of us; the Republic of Armenia is a country in which we must live, where we must create, where we must get married, where we need to have children, where we must pray, where we must be for pilgrimage and invite our fellow countrymen to stay in the homeland and build the homeland, making of it a daily job and concern. This is our goal and we serve this purpose every day.

There is no such other objective which to my mind is worth serving than that of making of Armenia the best place to live in the world in legal, economic, political and social meanings of the word. The Republic of Armenia has to be the best place to live in for every Armenian.

Our task, our ambition is that great, that strong, too comprehensive, and I think no one doubts that very soon we will jointly endeavor to that end to achieve that ultimate goal of ours. Thank you for being here, thank you for dedicating yourself to this noble objective.”

Answering a question of one of meeting participants about the Government’s key priorities, Nikol Pashinyan said, “One of our most important goals is to trigger off a tide of repatriation. We want to make sure that well above deciding to come to live in Armenia because this is their homeland, the land of their ancestors, but simply because the Republic of Armenia is a country where there is the rule of law; where human rights are respected, where democracy thrives; where there are equal conditions for economic competition, investing, making oneself and others rich and enjoying vast creative opportunities.

Why are we doing this? What is our chief objective? Our greatest goal is as follows: In fact, the wheel of emigration has been rolling, turning on and on in Armenia as early as since the Bagratid Era. Our most important goal is not only to stop the tide of emigration, but to reverse the trend so that people started coming back to Armenia just as they used to leave it for many centuries. This is our most important goal.”