YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan struck a cautious tone on Tuesday, November 4, when asked by the media to comment on recent statements by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who renewed calls for Azerbaijanis to be allowed to return to Armenia and again made claims regarding historical place names.
Speaking earlier at the opening of a two-day international conference in Yerevan, which was also attended by Azerbaijani experts, Pashinyan said that while the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan had been politically resolved, it remained unresolved on a social and psychological level.
In his remarks on Monday, November 3, the Azerbaijani leader, in particular, referred to Lake Sevan, Armenia’s largest body of fresh water, as Goycha, stressing that this Azerbaijan name appeared on early 20th-century Russian imperial maps.
He also suggested that the return of ethnic Azerbaijanis who left Armenia amid ethnic tensions in the 1990s should not frighten the Armenian people or state because “Azerbaijanis have never pursued separatism.” Aliyev added that Azerbaijanis would be returning to Armenia “in automobiles rather than on tanks.”
Pashinyan hesitated to answer the journalist’s question straightforwardly, saying that before doing so he would need to clarify what exactly the Azerbaijani president had said.
“If we are to look at Tsarist-era maps, well, let’s take a look… I already mentioned Kirovabad and Kirovakan, but did not mention Yelizavetpol and Alexandropol. In other words, we must make a choice,” Pashinyan said, referring to the historical names of cities in modern-day Azerbaijan and Armenia used during Soviet and Tsarist times.
