Monday, October 22 2018 12:00

ArmInfo. ''Our most important mission is to make the people of Armenia feel respected so that they could believe in their own strength and regain self- confidence,  Nikol Pashinyan stated at a meeting with representatives of the  Armenian community in the Armenian Embassy in Lebanon.

According to press service of Prime Minister of Armenia, welcoming  the participants of the meeting stated in particular: "It is a great  honor for me to be here today and have the opportunity to communicate  with you. First of all, I would like to thank you, since all this  time we have been feeling your warmth and support. It was extremely  important as it gave us a lot of strength so that we could remain  strong at times when it seemed that shocks were inevitable. During  this period, we were aware of and continue to perceive the situation  in the same way: the changes that we started and the status that we  have today is a great responsibility and honor for us before the  people of Armenia and all Armenians.  I want to assure you that we  are fully prepared to bear this responsibility, which was once again  reaffirmed today: it is a privilege to see the support of our  traditional parties, organizations and all our compatriots.  I want  to say in a nutshell what we want to do, and what are the main  changes that should occur or are happening in Armenia. Our most  important task is to promote democracy, which is not a theoretical  position for us: an individual understanding of democracy is very  important. You can discuss a lot what caused the citizens of Armenia  to make these changes; you can try to find economic, social and legal  reasons. But I think that the biggest demand of the people and  citizens of Armenia was that they should be respected and not  despised in their own country. This is the most important thing that  the citizens of Armenia, the people living in Armenia expect from the  authorities and will demand from any authorities, because we, the  Armenians, have a special sense of dignity.  Our most important  mission is to make the people of Armenia feel respected so that they  could believe in their own strength and regain self-confidence.  We  just have to mobilize our national potential, clearly formulate the  national agenda, and each of us should make a contribution within our  powers in order to implement the pan-Armenian agenda. In this regard,  I consider it important to establish democracy in Armenia. I used to  say several times as an opposition politician, and now I want to  repeat in my capacity of Prime Minister of Armenia: we enjoy the  people's trust, we represent Armenia as Armenia's authorities, and if  we manage to reinstate specific freedoms, protect human rights,  create an independent judiciary, ensure economic and political  success, even in this case I will not consider the mission of the  revolution and our mission completed.  My political team and I will  consider our mission complete only when we come to power through  free, fair, democratic elections or leave power at the will of the  people. This is a very important condition, because, after all, it is  very important for the people of Armenia to clearly realize that it  is not up to the government to decide what people should be wishing,  but the people itself has to determine what kind of authorities would  be formed in Armenia. In this regard, we must state that the  restoration of the electoral institution in Armenia is our most  important mission, and the Armenian citizens must be sure that they  can decide on the framework of power and individuals.  The rest is  supposed to serve this purpose.  You know that for many years there  used to be economic monopolies in Armenia. I have the honor to state  today that we no longer have economic monopolies in Armenia. For many  years, there was a clearly systematized corruption mechanism in  Armenia, and I have the honor to state that there is no corruption in  Armenia today. Of course, there are still officials who have been  working with the logic of the old regime for 20 years or more, and  are now looking for ways to restore these mechanisms, but we will not  give them that opportunity, and this is fundamental for us.  For me,  the most important principle is the following: the use of power as a  mechanism for getting property, wealth or material resources should  be ruled out. I am principled in this matter. In my opinion, there  should not be such people in our authorities as may use the public  position as a means of getting property. The desire to get property  and profit is legitimate, in general, when a person is not engaged in  State activity or politics, but politics must cease to be a means for  preserving property, or starting a business.  Unfortunately, I cannot  say that today this message is strictly observed by everyone in  Armenia, and I cannot exclude that this tendency can still continue  and there may even be new manifestations, but I can say with  confidence that we will consistently fight against it, and this  phenomenon should be ruled out in Armenia.  The next task is to  promote transparency, which implies that the government should work  transparently and report to the people. After all, our most important  task is to strengthen our statehood for the sake of our national  goals. It should be stated that statehood strengthening should be  based on the empowerment of people, because sometimes we come across  with the misconception that it is possible to have a strong statehood  without strong people. We shall take consistent steps to empower our  people. This does not mean that there are not and will not be  difficulties on this road, but I am convinced that for us there are  no insurmountable difficulties.  By saying "we", I mean our people,  because during its millennia-long history our people went through  genocides, a lot of troubles, and now we stand in the 21st century,  we have statehood, and in the 27th year on independence, we managed  do something unprecedented in mankind's history.  We managed what 99%  of our people and Armenians worldwide considered impossible: not that  they did not want it, but because they thought it was impossible.  Some were concerned that this way could lead to shocks and we would  inevitably have losses, but we felt the support of all our  compatriots and the popular non-violent velvet revolution occurred  when 99% of Armenians, even 100% pledged their support for the  process.  It was a truly nationwide revolution for both Armenia and  all Armenians. I want to congratulate you on the non-violent velvet  popular revolution, accomplished by all of us, because I hope that  the revolution makes each of you feel like a winner, and I  congratulate you on your victory.  Thank you", Pashinyan concluded.