Dear people, dear compatriots,

On August 23, 1990, the Supreme Council of the Armenian SSR adopted the Declaration on the Independence of Armenia, and today we celebrate the 33rd anniversary of that event.

The Declaration of Independence is a crucial document that laid the foundation for our statehood. It was adopted at the peak of the Karabakh movement, which had been unfolding since 1988, in the conditions of the economic, political and ideological crisis prevailing in the Soviet Union.

Before the 2020 war and especially after the war, I read the text of the Declaration many times. And I must admit that my post-war readings are somewhat different from pre-war readings.

The analysis of the text of the Declaration shows that we finally chose such a narrative and content, which is based on the formula that made us a part of the Soviet Union. it is about the confrontational narrative with the regional environment that kept us in constant conflicts with our neighbors.

With the Declaration of Independence, we declared the path to leave the Soviet Union, but we also closed all our ways to leave the Soviet Union. With the Declaration of Independence adopted at the end of the 20th century, we adopted a formula that had already led us to the loss of independence at the beginning of the 20th century.

Now we don't know, we certainly can't say what the other paths would be like and what they would lead to, but it is our historical duty to analyze and understand the path that has already been taken. Before assuming the position of the Prime Minister of Armenia in 2018 and after that, I treated the Declaration of Independence of Armenia as a "biblical message", while the Declaration, no matter how fundamental a document it is, needed and needs a deep examination, because it is a political document with all the consequences it entails.

And now, on the 33rd anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, I want to emphasize that the peace agenda adopted by our government is the independence agenda, because if we have peace, we will have independence. As long as we do not have peace, the ghost of the USSR will hover in our sky, in the sky of our region.

I choose independence, sovereignty, democracy. The citizen of the Republic of Armenia chooses independence, sovereignty, democracy.

Glory to the martyrs and long live the Republic of Armenia.