Republican Party of Armenia

 On the sidelines of his working visit to the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan called at Artsakh State University on the occasion of Knowledge Day where he met with faculty and students.

Extending congratulations, the Prime Minister said, “In my opinion, the scientific field is just where the Artsakh freedom fight should be waged today. With a breakthrough in this area we could build on our wartime achievements. The philosophy of cross-nation competition has changed in the 21st century: strong and developed are those nations at the forefront of fundamental research. It is just where we should seek another victory. We can and must forge new educational and scientific victories, and that will be the tribute we owe to our killed freedom-fighters. It is the right front to strengthen our victories.”

Noting that universities are today becoming the main development engine, Tigran Sargsyan said his government’s reforms target them as would-be research centers: “We first of all need to implement a vigorous educational reform and raise the quality of university services. The accreditation institute should be introduced in Armenia to help monitor the prescribed standards. This may lead to university mergers, and we cannot rule out that dozens of universities will prove out of race. Intellectual capacity will be funneled toward the ones successful in all phases of the accreditation process, which in turn may promote competition in the provision of quality services,” the head of government said.

Answering a student’s question about how the Karabakh movement started for the Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan said, “I got the skills of raising and solving national issues as early as in 1980-87, when I was a student in St. Petersburg. We used to hold April 24-dated events and discussed issues of all national concern. Back to Yerevan in 1988, I was offered a job at the local Planning and Research Institute, where I got acquainted with Igor Mouradyan. In a word, I was caught in the whirlpool of Karabakh movement immediately after St. Petersburg amid ongoing underground ideological struggle. In 1988, I joined Stepanakert with a suitcase full of leaflets. As you may know, an environmental movement kicked off later on in Yerevan, which smoothly moved into the political arena.”

Talking about possible military action in Syria, Tigran Sargsyan noted that Armenia should be ready for the worst scenarios with a variety of developments.

“A strong wave of immigration is expected from Aleppo: the problem is that it might be unsafe to move across the Syrian territory, and we need to get ready for such a development as we may need to accommodate Armenian refugees fleeing the blockade. All scenarios are being considered at this point of time,” the Prime Minister concluded.

At the end of the meeting, the students and the management of the university thanked the Prime Minister for interview and offered him a Karabakh dialect dictionary.

Reiterating his Independence Day congratulations, Tigran Sargsyan wished them every success and new achievements.