Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attended the event organized on the occasion of the Border Guard Day of the National Security Service.

In his speech, Prime Minister Pashinyan noted that this year the Border Guard Serviceman’s Day and Citizen’s Day coincided and congratulated everyone on Citizen’s Day. According to the Prime Minister, this coincidence is symbolic, because both the citizen and the border have an important fulcrum, and that fulcrum is the state.

“There is no citizen without a state, and there is no border without a state. And it is at this crossroads, at this intersection, that the ideological transformation that is taking place in the Republic of Armenia is taking place. And I must emphasize that this is a very important ideological transformation, and in the context of that ideological transformation, the border and the border guard are of particular importance. The border guard is the most important service of the state, the border guard is a military service, but the border guard is also, in a sense, a symbol of peace, a symbol of stability, a symbol of security, and our policy is to increasingly add the presence of border guards along the internationally recognized borders of the Republic of Armenia, which is a very important intermediate step on the path to long-term peace, institutional peace and stability,” noted Nikol Pashinyan.

The Prime Minister added that today the areas that have been demarcated and come under the control of the Border Guard Troops have acquired a certain demonstrative significance for the Government. “Because, personally I and representatives of other state administration bodies go to demarcated and delimited areas to demonstrate what we mean by saying Real Armenia, what we mean by peace and security, and this is an extremely important feature. I want to emphasize that those small steps that we implemented last year and as a result of which any citizen entering and leaving the territory of the Republic of Armenia comes into contact only and exclusively with the servicemen of the Border Guard Troops of the Republic of Armenia during border control. This is a very important milestone for our state, independence, sovereignty and development,” the Prime Minister said.

At the same time, Nikol Pashinyan expressed gratitude to the servicemen of the border troops of the Russian Federation and the Russian Federation for carrying out these functions from the first days of independence. “On the other hand, I am happy to emphasize that despite the various and well-known difficulties, we are able to implement such steps today. Today we are able to say that the Republic of Armenia, grateful to all its partners, can confidently assume the protection of its own borders step by step, and this is the medium-term goal that we set for ourselves.

Of course, this will not be possible without the development of the Border Guards, and the Government is taking steps to increase the capabilities of the Border Guards. I hope that you see and feel these efforts, this investment during your daily service. But on the other hand, as in many other state institutions of ours, we expect that the Border Guards servicemen will also take their step, will invest their individual efforts, so that to make the efforts of the Government more effective,” said the Prime Minister, referring, in particular, to the voluntary certification process, which is a very important tool for ensuring the well-being of the families of the Border Guards servicemen and contract servicemen.

According to Nikol Pashinyan, any citizen entering and leaving Armenia when carrying out border control comes into contact only with the servicemen of the Border Guards of the Republic of Armenia. This means that a person who enters the Republic of Armenia for the first time gets their first impression of what the Republic of Armenia is, what kind of country the Republic of Armenia is, what kind of people the people of Armenia are, from their contact with the border guard, and this is an extremely important feature.

The Prime Minister noted that he expects the Border Guards to make special efforts to improve their own service.

Summing up his speech, Nikol Pashinyan congratulated everyone on the occasion of the Border Guards Serviceman's Day and expressed gratitude for the service, wishing them good, peaceful service.

Then, the NSS Border Guards servicemen performed a festive parade and demonstration tricks. Prime Minister Pashinyan, accompanied by NSS Director Armen Abazyan, got acquainted with the technical means of the Border Guards and their capabilities.

The Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia and the NSS Director paid tribute to the memory of the fallen servicemen who sacrificed their lives for the sake of the homeland.