RA Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan referred to the use of the name “Goycha” by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev when discussing Lake Sevan.
“I don’t want to advocate for anyone, but the wording was like this: ‘There is no Sevan on the tsarist maps, there is Goycha.’ I don’t think this can be said that Aliyev is saying ‘there is no Sevan today, there is Goycha.” However, it is not the most constructive wording; it does not fit into the peace narrative.
There are many maps of the tsarist period that show Sevan’s location. I don’t want to go further back in history, as a very uncomfortable situation could arise, and we would see Armenian place names in a broader area.
Let’s talk about the real Armenia, the real, today’s Armenia, the borders recognized by Azerbaijan,” he said, calling on us to look not at the talk, but at the reality that exists.
Mirzoyan noted that there is a document on the mutual recognition of borders and territorial integrity under the Alma-Ata Declaration: “For me, as a member of the government, the weight of this is incomparably greater,” he said.
