Deputy Aziz Alakbarli called for the use of historical names for the toponyms Iravan and Tbilisi, stating that there are legal grounds for this issue.
Modern.az reports that this was stated by the chairman of the Western Azerbaijan Community, Deputy Aziz Alakbarli, at today's plenary session of the Milli Majlis.
The deputy stated that there is no legal basis for the use of some historical toponyms in a falsified form and that this issue should be re-examined:
“One of such toponyms is Iravan, and the other is the city name Tbilisi. In all scientific literature, it is generally stated that in 1936, the name of the city of Iravan was changed to Yerevan. I want to clarify this issue in Azerbaijani historiography.”
Aziz Alakbarli noted that on August 17, 1936, the USSR Central Executive Committee adopted a decision “On the correct spelling of names of settlements,” which corrected the spelling of names of 20 settlements in various republics.
According to the deputy, that decision allowed the use of only three toponyms in both historical and new variants:
“One of them is Iravan or Yerevan in Armenia, the second is Neftedag or Nebitdag in Turkmenistan, and the third is Tiflis or Tbilisi in Georgia.”
He emphasized that in Azerbaijan, the historical variant of the toponym Iravan is already widely used, and the same approach can be applied to other names:
“We have now restored the historical name of Iravan and are successfully using it. This is not only our historical right but also enshrined in that decision.”
The deputy appealed to media representatives, calling on them to pay more attention to the use of historical toponyms:
“I will distribute that document to media representatives today and ask them to adhere to the spelling of our historical toponyms as enshrined in the decision. Let's preserve the purity of our language on all levels.”
