Below is the speech of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at today’s plenary session of the 8th Summit of the European Political Community in Yerevan.

Distinguished guests, Dear colleagues, Dear friends,

Welcome to Armenia and thank you for your presence. It is a great honor for us to host the 8th Summit of the European Political Community.

This format is especially important. It played a key role in establishing peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan. In 2022, within the framework of the first Summit of the European Political Community held in Prague, a quadrilateral meeting was organized with French President Emmanuel Macron and European Council President Charles Michel.

There, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and I made a game-changing decision: Armenia and Azerbaijan recognized each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, based on the 1991 Alma-Ata Declaration. Based on that understanding, a realistic opportunity was created to reach a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the architecture of future peace was outlined, and we ended up at the Washington Peace Summit last August.

There, at the White House, with the support and participation of US President Donald Trump, the President of Azerbaijan and I adopted the Declaration of Peace. The US President also signed it, signed as a witness. In the presence of the three leaders, the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan initialed the Agreement on the Establishment of Peace and Interstate Relations between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Now we are on the path to implementing a particularly important project. This is the “Trump Road for International Peace and Prosperity,” which will contribute to peace by unblocking the routes of the region and creating new international routes from east to west, from south to north, which will significantly contribute to the stability of international supply chains.

Now we have peace with Azerbaijan. It has been two years since no one has been injured in a shootout with Azerbaijan, and these are unprecedented years since our independence.

We are now working closely with Azerbaijan to consolidate and institutionalize peace between our two countries. This is the first time that the President of Azerbaijan has participated in an event taking place in Armenia, albeit remotely. But we hope that I will have the opportunity to visit Azerbaijan in 2028, when the 12th Summit of the European Political Community will be held there. Armenia and Azerbaijan have mutually supported each other’s candidacies to host these summits.

Much has happened for me within the framework of these summits and is happening now as well. For the first time in history, my first bilateral meeting with the President of Turkey took place within the framework of the first Summit of the European Political Community in Prague. And now the Vice President of Turkey is here, participating in this summit in Yerevan. He is the first Vice President of Turkey to ever visit Armenia. The Presidents of North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the President of the European Parliament, the Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Croatia, Ireland, Andorra, Finland, Estonia, Luxembourg, Norway, Slovenia, Kosovo, Liechtenstein are visiting Armenia for the first time in history. This is another reason to consider this summit historic for Armenia, if I do not mention the fact of the summit itself, which is the first event of this scale in Europe, which Armenia is hosting for the first time in history.

Thank you for co-authoring this story for Armenia. Of course, this summit is important for the international context as well, especially now, when the world is facing growing and multiple challenges from Ukraine to the Middle East. I dare to hope that because of our discussions and conversations, this summit can become a historic summit for international peace and stability as well. I wish us success and consistency on the path to achieving this goal, which does not necessarily have to be in Yerevan, but we hope it will be soon.

I now declare the 8th Summit of the European Political Community open and wish us fruitful, meaningful, and forward-looking discussions.