September 21 is Symbol of Our Faith, Convictions, and Confidence, Says President Sarkisian

President Serzh Sarkisian delivers a congratulatory message in Yerevan on Armenia’s 24th Independence Day

On the occasion of the Republic of Armenia’s 24th independence anniversary, President Serzh Sarkisian held a festive reception at the Karen Demirchyan Sports and Concerts Complex in Yerevan.

During the reception, Sarkisian sent a congratulatory message to the Armenian people. His message read as follows.

Your Holiness Catholicos of All Armenians,Distinguished President of the

Nagorno-Karabakh Republic,

Honorable guests,

Fellow compatriots,

I congratulate all of us on the occasion of Independence Day.

The Armenian people’s millennial march has filled each page of our calendar with countless memories, has filled it with tears of joy and pain of loss, has filled it with resolve to struggle and with heroes’ challenge, has filled it with prayers of hopeless nights and promising victories coming with the early morning rays, has filled it wholly and completely, has filled it from the first line to the last one upon which we are writing.

Our people perfectly recollect every single sheet from the calendar of their struggle and combat. They remember those, who fell on our ages-old path and celebrate each day of our victorious unity.

Our historical calendar includes sheets inscribed in golden letters that have become our destiny for decades, centuries and millennia. They have also become the pages of the passport representing our national character to the world.

It was exactly such a new page inscribed in gold that our people created in their calendar of historical memory this day 24 years ago. On September 21, 1991, an entire people almost unanimously announced to the world that they assume anew the burden, responsibility and honor of mastering their own destiny.

And every time, when sharply a hundred and one days remain until the end of the regular year, we reiterate our pledge and declare to the world vociferously that we are here, we stand firm and determined. We are the masters of our own destiny, and our ancestors’ legacy belongs to us. We are the guarantors of cloudless mornings for our children and the pledge of peaceful sunsets for our parents. It is we, and nobody else.

The tongue we speak is Armenian, in which we prayed at the dawn of civilization and which can be heard today from the highest rostrums of the world. It can be heard thanks to the absolute unity demonstrated by our people 24 years ago.

That unity has not only granted us independence, but has also given us the power to fight and the spirit to create throughout two and a half decades. The Army and the State, market economy and civil society have been the institutes we established as our unambiguous response to the chance given to us by time and challenges imposed upon us.

However, the sweetest fruit of our unity is, without doubt, our present-day prideful and beautiful generation of independence.

Our united and sonorous response to the call of independence, our “Ayo”