UN General Assembly
2018

It is a great honour to address the Assembly as a leader who has recently become the Prime Minister of Armenia as the result of a people’s revolution that is now known as Armenia’s velvet revolution. I would like to take a moment to share the story of our victory over the authoritarian rule that preceded that revolution. The people of Armenia succeeded in bringing about an unforeseen and unprecedented revolution, which took place without violence, victims or public disorder. That was no coincidence, as our intention was to make a revolution based on love and solidarity. From the very beginning, we declared that we were ruling out violence of any kind. We declared that even if violence was used against us, we would not respond with violence. We declared that our response would be with raised and open hands, smiles and love.