Dear people, dear citizens of the Republic of Armenia,

On August 23, 1990, the Supreme Council of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic adopted the Declaration of Independence. With this document, the people of Armenia announced to the world about their desire to have an independent state and recorded their will.

Later, in 1995, a reference was made to the Declaration of Independence in the preamble of the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia and is still present there.

But, contrary to various interpretations, this does not mean that the entire content of the Declaration of Independence is included in the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia and the contents of these two documents are identical.

The clearest evidence of this is Article 5 of the Declaration, which states: "For ensuring its security and the integrity of its borders, the Republic of Armenia creates its own armed forces, internal troops, state and public security bodies under the Supreme Council."

Despite the wording of the Declaration, according to the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia, the Armed Forces, Police forces, state and public security bodies are not subordinate to the country's parliament, but before the constitutional changes of 2015 they were subordinate to the President of the Republic of Armenia, and since April 2018, they are subordinate to the government.

This directly and unequivocally shows that only the provisions of the Declaration of Independence, which are defiened directly, literally, and any other interpretation is simply not appropriate are expressed also in the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia.

Dear people, dear citizens of the Republic of Armenia,

Independence, sovereignty, statehood are the irreplaceable institutions of preserving our identity and independence, and on August 23, 1990, after a long pause, we made the first attempt to deal with these institutions and ideology. The ideas and perceptions of all of us, the citizens of the Republic of Armenia, about independence and statehood have changed significantly since those times, and I dare say, they have become deeper and more comprehensive.

Independence, statehood, citizenship are completely different formulas of thinking, completely different dimensions, and we step on those dimensions, adopt and develop these formulas today, right now.