Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan delivered a lecture for the students at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Latvia

18 September, 2019

On September 18, Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, who was on an official visit in Riga, visited the University of Latvia, where he delivered a lecture at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Latvia. 

Welcoming the students, Minister Mnatsakanyan presented in detail the priorities of the Armenian foreign policy, approaches of Armenia to the regional and international processes. Zohrab Mnatsakanyan touched upon the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, presenting the principal position and approaches of Armenia regarding the exclusively peaceful settlement of the conflict.  

Touching upon the common values and principles of Armenian and Latvian peoples, Minister Mnatsakanyan noted that: “We are not particularly big nations on the map of the world, but we know the value and the strength of sovereignty. And we just mentioned that I was in the United Nations. The beauty of the United Nations is that it’s one nation - one vote, independent of the size. And sovereignty is a very important instrument and institution to protect, preserve and develop our nations, our peoples and our identities. This is how we take it in Armenia. I represent a nation, who is very confident about its identity. You can find us on the maps of ancient Rome, you can find us on many other historical maps. We constituted kingdoms, we fought others, but we also made friendships with others, we were conquered, we lost our statehood, we were part of various empires, but we never lost our identity. The institutions of our identity were our language, our distinct alphabet, our civilizational impact, our culture.”

Minister Mnatsakanyan mentioned in his speech that Armenian people, having rich historical experience from ancient times left lasting and influential traces in many parts of the world political map: from Goa to Beirut, from Jerusalem to Rotterdam. 

Minister presented to students Armenian initiatives on international platforms for establishment and reinforcement of the agenda on prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide and other mass atrocities. “We are a nation who survived a genocide. This genocide is not recognized by the Turkish government, it is denied. So we are a nation that lives with a deep wound of denied justice. And we know the pain of impunity, the pain of denial.”

We as a state take active steps towards the prevention of mass atrocities on the international level. And we have strong partners amongst many nations, including Latvia. We are very proud of having a strong partnership in the world to collectively fight impunity, mass atrocities, and genocide.

In his conclusion Zohrab Mnatsakanyan noted with satisfaction that regardless the painful historical past Armenian people stood up to build their country on the basis of democracy, protection of human rights, the rule of law: “Nothing has stopped us from developing our state and we have been developing our state on the same values and the same principles as the other peoples of Europe, as the people of Latvia. The values of democracy, rule of law, human rights constitute at the foundation of our state.”

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