TBILISI (Reuters) – Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Friday that his country needed a new constitution to entrench its “democratic aspirations”, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported.
It quoted Pashinyan as telling a meeting at the country’s justice ministry: “We must have a Constitution that will make the Republic of Armenia more competitive and more viable in the new geopolitical and regional conditions”.
Pashinyan, a longtime liberal opposition leader who swept to power on the back of a 2018 revolution which ousted the former ruling elite, was cited as saying it was vital to do everything possible to shore up Armenia’s legitimacy.
Under Pashinyan, Armenia fought and lost a 2020 war with Azerbaijan over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region whose ethnic Armenian population fled en masse last year after an Azerbaijani military operation.
Pashinyan has also taken steps to distance Armenia from traditional ally Russia, building ties with Western countries instead while also engaging in talks to sign a potential peace treaty with Azerbaijan that would end three decades of conflict.
(Reporting by Felix Light; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
