Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan received at the Government the participants of the “iGorts” program aimed at the involvement of Diaspora specialists in the state administration bodies of the Republic of Armenia.

Welcoming those present, the Prime Minister noted that recently certain repatriation or immigration processes have been observed in Armenia. In 2025, the number of Armenian citizens returning to Armenia exceeded the number of citizens leaving Armenia by more than 8,000. According to Nikol Pashinyan’s observation, people are returning to the Republic of Armenia, purchasing real estate, making investments and trying to connect their lives with Armenia. “Unlike 2014, even 2019-2020, today the repatriation trends are becoming more confident, including due to the peace agenda and the established peace, because this is also a factor that we must definitely take into account,” said Nikol Pashinyan.

The Prime Minister noted that the "iGorts" program falls within the logic of this process and expressed hope that it will become a more practical, reliable mechanism for repatriation.

Referring to his announcement on involving graduates of the world's top 200 universities in the Armenian public administration system, Nikol Pashinyan informed that he has already made specific appointments and new appointments are expected in the near future. The Prime Minister noted that some of them were first introduced to the opportunity to work in the Armenian public administration system thanks to "iGorts".

"Now we are increasingly focused on the perception of the present and future of the Republic of Armenia, which we have formulated in the ideology of Real Armenia. If we were to formulate this ideology in one sentence, it is about the fact that the meaning and significance of the existence of the Republic of Armenia as a state is to ensure the security and well-being, freedom of its citizens, preservation of identity and development in the internationally recognized territory of the Republic of Armenia," the Prime Minister noted.

According to the Prime Minister, ideas and ideologies in the Republic of Armenia have usually been formulated by the elites and imposed on the society and the people. Nikol Pashinyan noted that as a result of the transition phase of that ideology, the ideology of the Real Armenia was formulated, which was also quickly implemented. “I am now convinced that the immigration process will be institutional, because today Armenia is governed by the logic and ideology that was not imposed on the people by the elites, but by the people on the ruling power. And therefore, I think that this is a new situation in our history, which opens up boundless horizons for our state,” the Prime Minister noted, emphasizing the importance and necessity of moving forward along the opened horizon.

In this context, Nikol Pashinyan added that these valuable processes of repatriation are not accidental: “I hope that we, including by reformatting relations between Armenia and the Diaspora, will be able to develop this logic and truly make Armenia a state that is developing and whose population is growing, first of all, thanks to the implementation of repatriation and, of course, also the demographic strategy. The human potential that will be involved in implementing that plan and strategy plays a very important role here. The “iGorts” program is a system for meeting that potential, meeting with those people, which, I hope, will become more and more effective over time.”

Acting High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs Zareh Sinanyan thanked the Prime Minister for hosting the 6th participants of the program and provided details about the program. It was noted that 68-70% of the participants of the previous five years remained in Armenia, 15% of them continue to work in the state system.

The number of program participants is 45. They arrived from Sweden, Spain, the Russian Federation, Norway, Hungary, France, Jordan, Belarus, Brazil, Argentina, Iran, and Austria.