Vice Speaker Rubinyan reacts to Aliyev’s controversial statement on Armenian toponyms

Vice Speaker of the Armenian Parliament Ruben Rubinyan reacted to a controversial statement by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who claimed that early 20th-century “Tsarist Russian maps” supposedly show that the toponyms of present-day Armenian territories are of Azerbaijani origin.

“If we go far enough back, at some point we really won’t see the name Sevan on old maps. Instead, we’ll see Geghama Sea or Gegharkunik Sea. And we won’t see Azerbaijan either. But there’s no point in going back at all — we must move forward. That is precisely the whole meaning of the August 8 Declaration,” Rubinyan wrote in a statement.

Earlier, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev claimed that early 20th-century "Tsarist Russian maps" show that “almost all place names in the territory of present-day Armenia are of Azerbaijani origin.”

“There is no Lake Sevan, but there is Lake Goycha. We did not create these maps; they were made by Tsarist Russia, which at one time resettled Armenians from Iran and Eastern Anatolia to Karabakh in order to change the ethnic composition,” the President of Azerbaijan said.