Honorable President of the National Assembly,
Dear MPs,
Dear Cabinet members,

First of all, I would like to address our colleagues from the “Civil Contract” faction and say that, in my opinion, the citizens of Armenia are getting a little nervous and are accusing us of still responding to Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan, and the forces led by them. I want to talk about the recent reactions, to talk about the fact that people say from time to time that it is a very convenient place for us, and we are entering into these conversations in order to avoid discussing the real problems that exist, finding solutions and formulas.

In fact, the problem lies elsewhere. In fact, the problem lies in the fact that the very peculiarity of governing a parliamentary country is that the main parties to the conversation are the ruling majority and the opposition. And in my opinion, this dilemma really needs to be resolved. And the way to resolve this dilemma is that parliamentary elections will be held soon, the forces led by these individuals simply should not be in parliament, this is the solution, as long as they are there, this same situation will continue. And I think that the time has really come for this problem to be resolved, but I also want to say why this problem should be resolved. A very interesting episode occurred during these two days of discussions. An opposition MP accused me of giving high positions in the Armed Forces to an agent of influence from another country, that was yesterday. Today, he defended the same person from this podium as a persecuted person. What this proves is that, despite certain personal problems, they are simply in the same status and receive instructions from the same place about who needs to be protected and who does not need to be protected.

In this election, this issue must be resolved for a simple reason, because as we can guess from those same speeches and the sequence, these political forces and their leaders, supposedly, are agents of influence in the Republic of Armenia. And these discussions are all about that.

And I want us to talk from this podium about the Armenia of 2018 and 2025, because these people, supposedly agents of influence of another country, want to incite disgust, contempt for today's Republic of Armenia. But I want to share my sincere impressions of the differences between 2018 and today's Armenia, because as of 2018, Armenia was in the pocket of that same country, whose agents of influence are the listed persons. Today, Armenia is an independent state. Today, Armenia is not only an independent state, but also Armenia has a center of sovereign will and can make decisions.

But I want all of us to finally face the reality and admit how Armenia ended up in that pocket, with what, how? With one tool, dear people, the Karabakh issue, and there is no other reason or explanation for it. And the talk goes on, they say, they talk about agents of influence of another country in the army, but if we have reached this point, let's try to make a list of those who were and were not agents of influence of that country as of 2018. By the way, this is not personal, with all due respect to everyone, but in 2018, 19, 20, 21, up to and including 22, the socio-psychology, the thinking of our army was that of an agent of influence. There was no center of sovereign will in our army. Moreover, I repeat, this does not mean that everyone was like that, no, I am talking about the atmosphere, I am talking about the mood, I am talking about the perception.

And this is the truth, and we must face this truth. It often happens so that people close themselves in their cabinets, lose their sense of reality, but sometimes, when I follow the events taking place outside the cabinet, I understand that many people who are not in the cabinets have lost their sense of reality, and they do not appreciate what has happened to Armenia. Armenia has been brought out of the trap. I know this is difficult to admit, but Armenia has been brought out of the trap. And on the contrary, what are these people saying today, they say, well, you gave them what they wanted. The only reason for the events of recent years is that, on the contrary, we have not given them anything they wanted, we have not given them anything. Today, people have come and are crying for Karabakh. No one, no one has done anything as much for Karabakh as we have, no one, starting with the financial side, which is visible in the budget figures, starting with the rest, which is not visible and will never be visible.

Why didn't we make concessions in 2018? Well, we'll close that topic by the end of the year, we'll publish those negotiation packages, because we were asked to give up Armenia's sovereignty and independence as a concession. It wasn't formulated that way. Do you think that in the rest of the times, when Armenia slowly settled into that pocket from the very next day of independence, from the moment of declaring independence, was it declared that way? No, it was declared in a completely different way, under different headlines.

They are talking about agents of influence. Listen, your party has been the agent of influence of that country all over the world for the last, let me say, 70 years. We have to talk about this. Today, they are crying for the church. What was that building on Abovyan Street doing in the 60s? How was it that the Soviet Union, that atheist state that was supposedly against our national identity, that AOKS building, how was it that there was a union for relations with compatriots, what was that union for relations with compatriots doing? How was it that it had such special structural support for the Armenian Apostolic Church? In other words, those papers had to be opened so that we could understand this. That party is still the agent network of that country, and it doesn’t matter which country. We have to make a decision whether we tolerate a network of agents of influence of other countries in the parliament of our country. We must decide whether we tolerate a network of agents of influence from other countries in our sacred sanctuary. My answer is no, because otherwise, why is there such hysteria? Because this is the last chance to take our state back, to place it in the pocket from which we came out.

The Republic of Armenia in 2025 is a good country, the Republic of Armenia in 2025 is a country that is able to face its own problems and its own destiny. Now the program is being discussed again, the program, which is a more understandable topic. Let me tell you something, this point of the Government's program, that point of the program, is being talked about all the time, but I want to emphasize again: there has never been, is not and will never be any government in the world, in general in nature, that has implemented 100% of its program, such a thing simply does not exist. It is nonsense. Therefore, the question is, what is the program being drawn up for? The program records the problems, the range of issues that the Government must solve.

Now what can we say about our program? The government program was adopted by the National Assembly on August 26, 2021, with 70 votes in favor. And in the fifth point adopted with the government program, it says: “Opening an era of peaceful development for Armenia and the region, however, is the greatest mission undertaken by the government before the people, based on the results of the snap elections.” This is the program adopted in the parliament. I opened it today to see what that greatest means. Greatest, I looked in the dictionary, the superlative degree of great, that is, the greatest, there are other explanations, highest, supreme, most noble. In other words, there is a highest, supreme mission in the government program, and that is to open an era of peaceful development for the region and the Republic of Armenia. In other words, we have fulfilled our greatest mission. These people say no, that is not peace, and what is peace? In general, this question is very interesting, let's record that too. That debate is normal, what is peace, because we do not know what peace is, the Republic of Armenia does not have such knowledge, does not have such experience of what peace is.

And this in mind, we don't go around asking what is peace? We say what is peace. Peace is that no soldier has been killed in a shootout on the Armenian border for 1 year and 8 months. Peace is that people haven't heard the sound of gunfire in border settlements for 3 months. Peace is that a train has entered Armenia through the territory of Azerbaijan, in the last 30 years or so, that is, supposedly no train has entered from this side since 1991. A train has entered that brought wheat. Part of that wheat can be used in bread, part of that wheat, I don't know, I don't care about that, I honestly haven't even cared, but part of that wheat can be given to the chickens. Won't our children eat the eggs laid by that chicken, won't our children eat that chicken meat? They can give that bran to the pigs. Will your leader not eat that pork, or does he not eat pork?

They say peace was during our time, but that was back then... for example, you were crying at Kirants funeral, you were already holding the funeral of Kirants, a priest was wearing funeral clothes, he was delivering the funeral of Kirants, was burning incense for Kirants. There were 102 houses in Kirants, now 55 houses are being built. Kirants is a demonstrative example for us today. In general, whoever doesn't understand, says they don't understand that ideology well, I say, come on, let's go to Kirants, come on, let's go to Kirants to see what the real Armenia is. Is this Kirants the defeated Kirants, is that Kirants the victorious Kirants? They also say, the foreign debt has increased by 8 billion, what have you done? I look at you, I understand... Don't you know what we did? Well, we didn't want to say it, but let's say it: we bought weapons. Did we borrow weapons? Yes, we borrowed weapons, why, because we needed them a lot and all at once. Don't you believe it? You have the right, I say, let's take them and show them, we can even stick the price tags on them to show their price. Come on, let's take them and show you the weapons of our army, let's show you the weapons of the army of your time, let's put them side by side. What have we done? Don't you know that there was COVID? We took a loan so that the country could overcome COVID during the war.

You say, the 44-day war report, nothing has changed in the status of the report on that 44-day war. It was supposed to be secret from the beginning, it's there, go read it. Go read it what is written there, do you want to say that there's anything... Listen, I've shared so much information since 2020 about the 44-day war, with all due respect, a thousand apologies, but even if there were six such committees, they couldn't collect more information than I provided, simply because of the absence of that information, they simply couldn't collect it. Now tell me what happened to your investigative committee dealing with the lost money of the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund? Where is its report, what happened, why was it forgotten?

For more than a year, they've been saying from this podium: what about our occupied territories, what about our Artsvashen, what about this, what about that? I have said before that it should be resolved as a result of the demarcation, and now I have said again that we must return Artsvashen and the occupied territories. Listen, let everyone at least talk about the things they understand.

The Minister of Finance presents a report, says, "Well, this was done for the people, for the people, for the people," they come and say, "The pension hasn't increased by this much," and you say, "For the people." People, aren't the roads for the people? Isn't the water supply system for the people? Isn't the school for the people? Isn't the kindergarten for the people?" Are you surprised that they are upset about such a school? How did they do it? They have to take their money to Cyprus, invest it in Armenia as foreign investment, and the children who don't have that school are their own laborers and bodyguards. And if those children learn reading and writing, who will be their illegal workers? They need those children as illegal workers, sbodyguard brigades, criminal scum. Where will they get that resource from to fill their criminal scum ranks, if there is a school, a kindergarten? And they are upset about it. They are upset that they have the opportunity to give their children education in London, here the children should not have a school, they should not know the letters, so that they can be black laborers, be feeders for their dogs, be feeders for their lions, they can be bodyguards, they can be thieving scumbags. Where will those children get education? It must be said, it must be confronted.

There were also provisions about Karabakh in our program. There are pages written about the CSTO, how we will deepen our relations within the framework of the CSTO, etc. It was also written about Karabakh, it was written that the peacekeepers, both Armenia and the peacekeepers, guarantee it, etc., etc. Are there provisions about Karabakh, of course there are. Could we go, continue, go after those provisions, like a bulldozer, we could, but we would lose our state. Political leadership is a place where you take responsibility upon yourself, which no one else would take. Soon the negotiation documents will be revealed and you will see that the topic of Karabakh's independence is a fake, fake, and again fake.

And I'll tell you more, now they say a lot that since 2018... if we weren't in power as of 2018, we were the only ones who could have gone this way. If anyone else had remained, there wouldn't be the Republic of Armenia today. No matter how immodest it is, I have to say this. And yes, this is a mission, we are doing this mission. Our teammates kept telling me, why are you saying that, don't say that, you can't say that. We were holding elections in 2021, I said, if our people decide to shoot me, I will stand silently under the wall. I say it now too. But if we were confused then in some way, now we are confident. Now I am confident in the path that we have taken. In general, let me tell you something: we are just learning what a state is. They do not know what a state is, they know what an outpost is. We have also been in an outpost, we have also been in a pocket, but we have decided that we must come out of the pocket, we have decided that we must be an independent state.

By the way, about our program, our first and most important program was to ensure the survival of the Republic of Armenia. Why other countries did not sell arms to Armenia before 2022? For a simple reason, they said, dear friends, we have no guarantee that you will use the weapons sold to you to protect your internationally recognized territory, moreover, we are convinced that you will use it outside your internationally recognized territory, and that, sorry, is unacceptable for us. That path was opened for us after October 6, 2022, when we said that we recognize the territorial integrity of our country. They are dissatisfied with that. When they say that 29 thousand square kilometers is bad, they say, ''We must go back to that pocket. How did you leave that pocket? There is no better place in the world than that pocket''. And they have kept us in that pocket, with all due respect, using Karabakh as bait. They are trying to create the impression that we have some kind of attitude towards the people of Karabakh or towards our compatriots from Karabakh, that we have distrust. I told the minister the other day that I don't want to say it because it may not sound good, but, sorry, half of the leadership of our armed forces today is from Karabakh, the highest level, our armed forces today, do you understand what I'm saying, our armed forces are led by Karabakh people, so if we don't trust the Karabakh people, we don't like them, how did we get those people to be appointed to those positions?

If we have betrayed, they tell us that we have betrayed, we have done this, we have done that, I have not heard anywhere that any claim has been made against these people that these people, people of Karabakh origin, have entered into any treacherous deal. How do these people work with us, if we are traitors, how are they... Don't they know everything? Don't they know everything from the inside, how do these people work with us? Who will answer this question? I won't bring names, but I say that there is no exaggeration, the entire top of our military pyramid at the most key positions are people from Karabakh.

They come here and say, "Wow, the world average for science funding is this much, ours is this much." Since 2018, science funding in Armenia has increased 2.8 times, by 180%. That is, it has increased by 180% and still does not reach the world average. The average salary of scientists has increased 3.2 times, by 220%, in recent years. They have come here to mourn the loss of science.
There is an order worth 171 billion drams from the military-industrial complex. Rreturning to military armaments and military equipment, without noting that our task is not combat capability, but defense capability, we have no task to solve outside our internationally recognized territory, if all these are not coordinated with each other, it will be a disaster for Armenia. And they want to constantly push and provoke us there. We have not deviated even a millimeter and will not deviate from the peace agenda, which is our commitment to our people. And yes, we will talk only and only about defense. And we say, we will not conduct a military operation for Artsvashen, nor for other places, because there is no need for it. They say, what is it, it’s just a paper that has been signed, has been initialed... Dear people, have you forgotten that in October of last year, the National Assembly ratified the paper signed between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which now has the highest legal force in both countries. That is peace. It has entered into force as a ratified document. That is peace. That is peace. Peace is being built. If there were peace, there would be no need for these steps. We would say, there is peace, all that remains is to preserve it. Now we are already saying that there is peace, all that remains is to preserve it.

They say it's for the people, it's for the people. Now I'll tell you some crazy numbers. You know, right? Who remembers it at all today? Who even touches on that topic, because there is no such topic. So, before 2018, the business community in Armenia was suffering to get its value-added tax back. For decades, the state owed tens of billions to the business community. From 2018 to the present, in terms of value-added tax returned to the economic community, we have returned 255 billion drams, or 435%, or 5.4 times more money than the previous period, say, for example, from 2010 to 20117. Now no one talks about it, sorry, including the business community. Who stands up and says, "Wait a minute, people, we suffered so much, we couldn't get a penny back from the state, now every month the exact day comes, the money is sitting in our account." Is this for a person or not for a person?

We have returned 377 billion drams to the citizens of Armenia in terms of income tax from 2018 to date. The increase compared to 2010 to 2017 is 9337% or 94.4 times. This money was received by specific people. These specific people, several tens of thousands of families, have purchased apartments since 2018. Are they human or not? I have nothing to say, there are people who have purchased two apartments, families who have purchased two apartments. Are they human or not?

Now about proportional development: the primary market in the regions, since 2018 - in the regions, I don’t say Yerevan, so that they cannot say everything is in Yerevan - compared to the previous period, that is, we compare 2018 to 2025 and 2010 to 2017, 10606 apartments were purchased. The growth in the regions is 1104%. Are they people or not people?

They talk about the communities... Subsidies to communities have increased by 232 billion drams compared to the previous period. Today they say, what are we doing to opposition communities? These people spend billions of the money we gave them, and they don't even thank us. They don't even tell their people that, dear people, 70-80 percent of this money was given by the Government.

Subsidies: We have provided 119 billion drams, or 2.9 times more subsidy programs to communities compared to the previous period. They tell us that we promised this, we promised that... Yes, we promised that the minimum pension would be more than the minimum expenditure basket and we have fulfilled it. We still have problems with the average pension, which we need to understand how to solve.

And why are we not talking about the things that we did not promise, but we have done. For example, we say that there is an ordinary soldier in Armenia who receives 700 thousand drams today. We did not promise that. Or the program of 16 million AMD that we are implementing in the border areas and will continue now. We did not promise, but we did it, because we assessed the situation and did it and we did it right. Do they want numbers? The real growth of salaries in the last five years was 27.1%. Real growth minus the effects of inflation. Why is the problem of poverty not being solved? I just want to tell you why poverty cannot be overcome - because of education, because of the lack of schools, because what does a person in poverty need, why is he poor in the first place? Because of the problem of education, because of non-existent schools, because of the low quality of universities, because of non-existent kindergartens, etc. And we are solving this problem and must solve it. Including because of the lack of peace.

Dear guests,
Dear colleagues,
In general, I think that we should be able to protect today's Armenia, because today's Armenia is a much stronger, much more self-confident state, more of a state than ever before, not only in 2018. Today's Armenia is a state whose destiny is in the hands of itself and its people. And I am convinced that this situation will not only be preserved, but will develop, because it is a historical turning point. What is happening now is a historical turning point. Armenia has never had such a chance in its history to be a state, to be prosperous, to be happy, to be independent, to be safe. We are not talking about the last five years, we are talking about the last 500 years. And yes, we must admit that we have solved this problem by going through very bitter, cruel trials. We have gained this independence at the cost of the lives of our martyrs. And today's Armenia, which is living, is living the best period of its history in the last 500 years. And it is very important to see this. Why is it important to see, because yes, one needs to see. I will never tire of quoting that word from the New Testament again, which says: you shall look, you shall look and you shall not see, you shall hear, you shall hear and you shall not know. What is the difference between us in 2018 and today? In 2018, we like everyone else, by the way, not only us, like everyone else, we looked, we looked and we did not see, we listened, we listened and we did not know. Now a Government and a ruling majority have appeared in Armenia, who, by looking, began to see, who, by listening, began to know. Both the Republic of Armenia and the people of Armenia must hold fast to our newfound vision and our newfound knowledge.

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

Thank you.