Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly Comments on Aliyev's Statements

The Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia, Ruben Rubinyan, has addressed the recent statements made by the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, regarding Lake Sevan, via a Facebook post.

“If we go back far enough, at some point we really won’t see the name Sevan on old maps. Instead, we will see the Geghama Sea or the Gegharkunik Sea. And we will not see Azerbaijan. But there is no point in going back at all. We must move forward. The essence of the August 8 declaration is precisely that,” wrote Rubinyan.

Ilham Aliyev had previously stated that maps from the early 20th century show that most of the place names in Armenian territory have Azerbaijani origins. “There is no Lake Sevan, but there is Lake Goycha. Those maps were not created by us; they were made by Tsarist Russia, which at one time resettled Armenians from Iran and Eastern Anatolia in Karabakh to alter the ethnic composition,” said Aliyev.