How long can one play on the emotions of the fallen? I kneel before the graves of the fallen, I have knelt, and I know and I said why our martyrs have fallen. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated this Thursday during the National Assembly debates on the execution of the 2021 program of the government of Armenia.

"They have fallen to force us not to allow us to be kept in the status of a ‘sacrificial lamb’ for centuries. We are a state, we are a country, we are citizens, we are a proud people, we have a millennial history, but we have to write and learn ourselves that story of ours, not let others write our history and serve us that story," Pashinyan said.

He considered the question very right as to whether Azerbaijan wants peace, or to what extent what the Armenian side says is acceptable for Azerbaijan.

"These are very true concerns, but it is about something else. What do I mean when I say that we have opened a space before us? I mean, well, in the end, we have to bring issues to the agenda, we have to fill the regional agenda with content. That, too, is part of the same process.

It is enough to constantly impose and serve agendas on us. Do you understand [that] we have not imposed agendas? Why and how much did we keep land? We kept that much and because as long as it was beneficial for many. Let's understand this. Well, as much as possible. (…).

Because now we are not talking about just current things, we are talking about the being or not being of Armenia and Artsakh [(Nagorno-Karabakh)]. Armenia and Artsakh—by the way, this is very important—are not just plots of land because all the former plots of land of Armenia today are there as well on the planet and exist.

Armenia is a people, it is a status, it is a state, it is a subject of international legal relations. This is what we want. And, yes, there is a terribly big aggression around us, and that aggression is not just where we see it, that aggression is in a lot of other places. What needs to be done regarding this aggression? That aggression needs to be managed. That aggression needs to be managed; there is no other way," Pashinyan said.