At the international forum “Comprehensive Security and Resilience 2025,” Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan made a statement that has sparked deep unease: he compared the image of Mount Ararat on Armenia’s state emblem to a mural painted on a neighbor’s wall—an image that constantly irritates them. According to this metaphor, Ararat could be a source of tension, dispute, or even war with Turkey.

This remark raises a question that goes beyond mere rhetoric: Should Armenians renounce the symbolic meaning of Ararat simply to avoid unsettling their neighbor?

Ararat is not merely a decorative element. It is the spiritual and eternal heart of the Armenian people. It has witnessed the birth of our civilization, stands at the core of biblical tradition—where, according to Scripture, Noah’s Ark came to rest upon its summit—and remains the horizon visible from Yerevan today. Although politically located within Turkey’s borders, Ararat is not a geographical fact for Armenia, but rather the consequence of historical injustice: lost territories due to unfair treaties, genocides, and diplomatic agreements that disregarded the voice of the Armenian people.

If Turkey and Azerbaijan can place the crescent moon—a religious and national symbol representing only part of their populations—on their flags, why should Armenia be expected to abandon Ararat as a symbol of millennia-old belonging? National symbols are not bargained over like borders; they express the depths of the soul, the intangible, that which gives meaning to a people’s existence.

To demand that Armenia renounce Ararat in order to spare its neighbor discomfort is not only disproportionate—it opens the dangerous door to cultural surrender. Peace built upon the silencing of memory is not peace, but submission. Recent history has shown us that concessions which sacrifice identity do not bring stability, but frustration, distrust, and moral emptiness.

Armenia’s true challenge is not to sever its memory, but to affirm its identity with political wisdom and strategic vision. Ararat belongs to the Armenian soul. And no short-term calculation should ever compel us to deny it.

As long as we can see Ararat from the hills of Yerevan, we will remember that no political power can ever steal from us what belongs to us before any border ever existed: memory, dignity, and the right to exist as a people.

There can be no renunciation of the symbol. Because Ararat is not just a mountain. It is us.