Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's congratulatory message on the 34th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence of Armenia.

"Dear people, dear citizens of the Republic of Armenia,

On August 23, 1990, the Supreme Council of Soviet Armenia adopted the Declaration of Independence. With this document, the people of Armenia announced to the world their desire to have an independent state and recorded their will.

The reference to the Declaration of Independence in 1995 found a place and is still present in the preamble of the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia.

However, contrary to various interpretations, this does not mean that the entire Declaration of Independence is included in the RA Constitution and that the content of these two documents is identical.

The most apparent evidence of this is Article 5 of the Declaration: "To ensure its security and the integrity of its borders, the Republic of Armenia creates its armed forces, internal troops, state, and public security bodies under the Supreme Council."

Despite the similar wording of the Declaration, according to the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia, the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia, Police forces, and state and public security bodies are not subordinate to the country's parliament but were subject to the President before the constitutional amendment in 2015 and to the Government after April 2018.

This directly and unequivocally demonstrates that only those provisions of the Declaration of Independence are expressed in the RA Constitution, and they are expressed directly, literally, and any other interpretation is simply not appropriate.

Dear people, dear citizens of the Republic of Armenia,

Independence, sovereignty, and statehood are indispensable for maintaining our identity and independence. On August 23, 1990, we first attempted to deal with these institutions and ideologies after a long pause. The ideas and perceptions of all of us, the citizens of the Republic of Armenia, about independence and statehood have changed significantly since those times and, I dare say, have become deeper and more comprehensive.

Independence, statehood, and citizenship are entirely different formulas of thinking, completely different dimensions, and we step on those dimensions and adopt and develop these formulas today, right now.

Dear people, dear citizens of the Republic of Armenia. I congratulate all of us on August 23, and I refer to all of you my recently written poem "The Real Armenia: The Republic of Armenia."

We want to see you happy
But we'll see you for that.
Our eyes are far from you
They searched for homelands without stopping.

We want to see you happy
But we will have to see if Armenia
We should want to see happy
With you, in you, inseparable from you.

We have to make you happy
The smile on your face, covered in tears,
From a haunted house
Out of the life, with our eyes wet.

And your life will last forever,
The source of our love, the bulwark of our hope.
Happiness is your last home
Our ancient homeland, our modern state.

You are all that we are
Our hearts will not leave you again,
We didn't lose you, but we found you again
The state is our neighbor; homeland is our old one."