BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 20. Armenian toponyms for areas of birth of Azerbaijanis from Western Azerbaijan (historical Azerbaijani lands in modern Armenia) have been replaced with Azerbaijani ones, Trend reports.
Armenians for many years have been changing the Turkic names of settlements into Armenian. Armenians falsified the cultural, religious, historical monuments of Azerbaijan, also changed the names of localities, territories, and replaced them with Armenian toponyms.
Following the end of the second Karabakh war in 2020, Azerbaijan restored historical justice, putting an end to the 30-year Armenian occupation. This victory of Azerbaijan not only put an end to the occupation of Azerbaijani territories, but also embarked the beginning of a very important process to restore the historical past of Azerbaijan, to rid these territories, which Armenia occupied for many decades, of Armenian toponyms.
Chairman of the Western Azerbaijan Community, Azerbaijani MP Aziz Alakbarli told Trend that one of the community's main goals is to reveal the truths related to the historical lands of Azerbaijan, ensure the spiritual return of Azerbaijanis to the homeland of their ancestors and lay the foundation for their physical return.
"The restoration of Azerbaijani toponyms is also an integral part of our spiritual return to our native historical lands. I will give you an example: a citizen was born in 1960 in the village of Yarpizli, Basarkechar region. The name of the Basarkechar region was changed in 1969 to Vardenis, the name of the village of Yarpizli - in 1978 to Lchavan. So why should this citizen's document now state that he was born in the village of Lchavan, Vardenis region? On the other hand, we have already put forward in the 9th paragraph of 4th Article of the Concept of Return to Western Azerbaijan as a condition to 'cancel the geographical names' that Armenia gave to these territories. If we ask them to abolish these names, why should we ourselves accept false Armenian toponyms?"
On December 24, 2022, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, having viewed conditions created at an administrative building of the Western Azerbaijan Community at a meeting with a group of intellectuals from Western Azerbaijan noted how sensitive is the issue of falsification of Azerbaijani toponyms.
"Western Azerbaijan is our historical land, which is confirmed by a number of historical documents, historical maps and our history itself. Unfortunately, the Armenians razed all our historical and religious monuments in Western Azerbaijan to the ground, as they did in Karabakh. They wanted to erase the historical heritage of the Azerbaijani people, but they could not achieve their goals. Because there is history, there are documents and there are maps. The map displayed in this building, dating back to the beginning of the 20th century, once again shows that Western Azerbaijan is the historical land of Azerbaijan. The names of cities and villages are of Azerbaijani origin, and we know perfectly well that the Azerbaijani people have lived in the territory of the present-day Armenia throughout history. The main task now is to let the whole world know about that. Work in this direction has already started, but I am sure that the community will do this work in a more focused and result-oriented manner," President Ilham Aliyev said.