A joint press conference was held after the meeting between Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan and Prime Minister of the Republic of Estonia Kristen Michal. The prime ministers of the two countries made statements to the press, then answered questions from media representatives.

The joint press conference is presented below.

Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal - Dear Nikol, it is a great honor for me to welcome you and your delegation to Tallinn. I hope, and the people of Estonia also hope, that you have brought with you the warmth of the Armenian spring. Thank you for the dialogue, which can be described as a warm dialogue. I look forward to continuing this over dinner.

The cooperation between our countries is deepening, I welcome this fact, closer cooperation in different areas, clearer priorities will take us far. In December last year, in Estonia, we reached a point where all our public services are 100% digital. We will continue to work in this direction to reduce bureaucratic hustle and bustle. We are honored that Estonia’s experience is helping to shape Armenia’s future-oriented digital state. For example, the Estonian company Proud Engineers is supporting the implementation of a project that will enable data exchange between Armenian tax authorities and banks.

We also cooperate in the field of education, in teacher training and educational innovations. Estonia has launched an initiative to bring artificial intelligence to schools to better prepare our youth for the rapidly changing labor market. The Estonian Development Cooperation Center is also helping to diversify Armenia’s economy. We are ready to share our business diplomacy experience. Our private sector is already supporting Armenian SMEs to improve their export capabilities.

Important reforms are being implemented in Armenia, you have clearly chosen a path that means closer relations with the European Union. Estonia supports you in this matter, we encourage you, and the reforms will bring tangible benefits, first of all, to your people. This is evidenced by our experience of 20 years. We have also actively supported the expansion of EU assistance mechanisms to Armenia, the launch of a visa liberalization dialogue, and we hope to make progress on the new partnership agenda.

Peace in the South Caucasus is very important for Estonia and the European Union, and I am glad that Armenia and Azerbaijan were able to agree on the text of the peace agreement, and in this matter, Mr. Prime Minister, your participation was very important. I hope that the agreement will be signed soon.

And finally, we should all strive to support Ukraine even more, because Russia’s destructive attacks show that we need to better, more decisively support Ukraine and Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Thank you.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan - Dear Mr. Prime Minister, dear Kristen, it is a great honor for me and my delegation to be in Tallinn today to give a new impetus to the relations between our countries. I attach great importance to the continued development of relations with the Republic of Estonia based on universal and democratic values, and I highly appreciate the continued support provided by the Government of the Republic of Estonia to the democratic reforms being implemented in the Republic of Armenia, which you also mentioned. The Estonian experience in establishing democratic institutions, in particular, the massive use of digital solutions and e-governance tools in them, is exemplary for Armenia, and we are, of course, very interested in deepening our further cooperation in this regard.

In recent years, high-level mutual visits have raised the political dialogue between our two friendly countries to a new level. Let me express my confidence that through joint efforts we can further deepen the existing cooperation. I am glad that today we had the opportunity to hold productive discussions on issues related to the current cooperation between Armenia and Estonia in various fields, as well as to outline other promising directions of cooperation.

We are particularly interested in deepening cooperation in the fields of education, science, information and innovative technologies. I am confident that the agreements reached during the visit will add a new quality to bilateral relations. In addition to bilateral cooperation, we touched upon Armenia-Estonia cooperation in multilateral formats, as well as the Armenia-European Union partnership agenda.

I presented to my Estonian counterpart the latest developments in the Armenia-EU agenda, the European aspirations of Armenian citizens, expecting official Tallinn’s political support on the difficult and long path to the European Union, and I am grateful for the readiness shown. In this context, I attach great importance the further deepening of Armenia-Nordic Baltic (NB8) cooperation and I am confident that cooperation within the framework of the format will be effective for the ongoing democratic reforms in Armenia and European integration process. I am confident that the cooperation between the participating countries of this format and Armenia will be continuous.

Of course, today, during the discussion with the Prime Minister of Estonia, as well as in the expanded format, we touched upon the latest geopolitical and regional developments. In this regard, I would like to emphasize once again that the Republic of Armenia is firmly committed to achieving sustainable peace in our region. We are determined to take our share of the necessary steps on this path, bear our share of responsibility, and resolve the existing issues with our neighbors through constructive dialogue and negotiations. In this context, I have presented the latest developments related to the peace process in the South Caucasus and our expectation that Armenia’s peace agenda will ultimately yield tangible results.

I thanked my colleague for welcoming the final agreement on the text of the Agreement “On the Establishment of Peace and Interstate Relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan” by Estonia and reaffirmed my readiness to sign the already agreed text, noting also that I consider it possible to sign a joint application with Azerbaijan on the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group structures simultaneously with the peace agreement.

Distinguished guests,
Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

In conclusion, let me once again express my gratitude for the important talks held, as well as for the warm welcome shown to our delegation. I look forward to our next meeting, which I hope will take place in the capital of Armenia, Yerevan.

Question - My question is addressed to Mr. Pashinyan. Years ago, people took to the streets in Yerevan. A revolution that brought you to power. I was also there at that time, I was on the street, we actually met briefly and had an interview. Today, the situation is such that Nagorno-Karabakh is no longer under Armenian control, but you continue to remain Prime Minister, which is impressive. At the same time, when you communicate with Moscow, you no longer have to be careful in your choice of words. Are you ready to completely get out of Russia's sphere of influence and how do you see your relations with Russia in the future?

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan - Thank you for the question. I think that in general, in international relations, in any relations and in diplomacy, it is always right to choose words, because any relationship will deteriorate if we are not careful in choosing words.

And as for our relations with the Russian Federation, our relations are and should be based on mutual interests, and we, if you are aware, have adopted a balanced and balancing foreign policy, which means that we do not imagine and do not build our foreign policy in one single direction, but are trying to find and build the right balances in our foreign policy.

One of its expressions was the law recently adopted in the Republic of Armenia on launching the process of Armenia's accession to the European Union, and I want to say that during discussions with the Prime Minister, I also emphasized that we consider this law as an additional incentive for our democratic reforms, because one way or another, we are pursuing a strategy of democratic reforms, and it is very important that we have additional incentives in that strategy, and this law is one of the additional incentives.

But on the other hand, I want to be very clear, because sometimes comments are made also in Armenia that do not accurately reflect, in my opinion, the reality. We have no intention at all to strain, break, or ruin our relations with Russia. We want, as is logical, to have good relations with all international partners. Moreover, we want to normalize our relations with the countries of our region, we want to normalize relations with Azerbaijan, with Turkey, we want to further improve relations with our other neighbors, with Georgia, with the Islamic Republic of Iran, and of course, we want to deepen our relations with the European Union.

If we see what developments have occurred in Armenia-European Union relations in recent years, perhaps some time ago this would have seemed and been assessed as unrealistic and impossible. Today, there is a European Union Civilian Observation Mission in Armenia, and I am grateful to the European Union, and I am also grateful to Estonia for supporting that decision.

Now we have started negotiations on visa liberalization, which we hope will reach a logical conclusion in a reasonable time frame. Last year, the European Union took a decision to provide support to Armenia within the framework of the Peace Facility instrument, which I think is also a very important decision. Of course, in a tangible sense, in a substantive or material sense, that decision is quite symbolic, but it has enormous political significance, and this is also one of the important results of our balanced and balancing foreign policy. Of course, we also hope to deepen economic, trade relations with the European Union, because I think that political dialogue becomes more effective and tangible when it is accompanied by concrete economic results.

Question - Estonia has been an active supporter of the EU's Eastern Partnership, and how does Estonia assess Armenia's current trajectory towards deeper integration with the EU, and with what specific proposal can Estonia support the advancement of democratic reforms in our country and the alignment with EU standards, thank you.

Kristen Michal - Thank you for the question. This is the second time that I have met my Armenian counterpart. We have also discussed these reforms in the past, and I am really glad that you have adopted a philosophical approach, which is that reforms improve the lives of the Armenian people. In other words, they are not reforms for the sake of reforms, but reforms for the sake of further improving the lives of the Armenian people.

And therefore, deepening relations with the EU in terms of these reforms can be a very good incentive. If we look at what has already happened, what steps have already been taken - getting rid of Russian influence, making decisions related to border protection, this conscious choice to further strengthen relations with Europe, I think these are principled decisions and choices, and Mr. Prime Minister described that this also enjoys very widespread support among the Armenian people.

And what can Estonia do? We can help, we can help with our digital state experience. Often in Estonia, people are impatient, they want everything to be faster, computers to work faster, but we have made significant reforms in the digital sphere, introduced ID card solutions, which have made our state administration more efficient, more transparent, and also greatly facilitated the functioning of the economy. There is no longer a need to write and fill out things on paper, etc., etc. We have also made significant reforms in the justice sector, as well as many other processes that Estonia has implemented.

Estonia, of course, has joined the European Union, and therefore this is an interesting experience and story. Often we see countries, we see people who simply do things for the sake of doing things. And the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia told us, presented that the goal of reforms is to improve the quality of life of people. I totally support this approach, these processes.

Question - How long do you think this situation can continue, when you apply to join the European Union, but also attend parades in Moscow. What do you think also prevents the signing of a peace treaty with Azerbaijan?

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan - You know, I have already said that we do not set a goal of worsening relations in any direction. This is a very important nuance, because there can be two theoretical approaches: deepening relations in one direction and spoiling relations in the other. And this is an approach that, at least, we do not support.

Our approach is to use our sovereignty to deepen our relations in all those directions where we want to have deeper relations, where our relations are not deep enough. Armenia-European Union relations are just that. Of course, you know, it is obvious that there may be situations where there will be certain tensions, certain intersections between our foreign relations in different directions, and we imagine managing that situation with our transparency, our honesty, our openness to all our partners, so that our approaches, our understandings are sufficiently clarified to all our partners, so that there are no dark corners regarding the policies we pursue, their reasons, their justifications.

As for the signing of the peace agreement with Azerbaijan, I can say the following that our Government, I personally, are working on that topic on a daily basis and as I said, we are consistent and determined in that matter to do our part in a complete manner, consistently and patiently. And therefore, my direct answer to your direct question is the following: We will continue this strategy until the goal, that is, the peace agreement is signed and peace is established, and we will not deviate from this path. Any information you receive from anywhere that the Armenian government is deviating from this strategy, know that that information does not correspond to reality.