Parliament Speaker Alen Simonyan, speaking to journalists in the National Assembly, addressed Aliyev’s statement claiming there is no Lake Sevan but only Lake Goycha and that all Armenian toponyms are of Azerbaijani origin. He said he had commented on it long ago.
Regarding a correspondent’s observation that Aliyev spoke of “liberating territories,” Simonyan said: “In his text, I saw nothing about liberating. On the contrary, I heard him saying: ‘We must return by cars’—he didn’t say tanks, etc. I don’t understand why you interpret that as ‘liberation’.”
He added: “Long ago, I said that once you enter the realm of historical quests, someone might end up finding their homeland in Altai. I have nothing to add to that. I believe that it does not align with the existing logic, but, at the same time, I think it is done intentionally and for the internal audience; I do not want to respond to where exactly his internal audience is.”
When reporters asked whether it is acceptable to talk about “return to Lake Sevan,” Simonyan replied: “So when we talk about the return of the residents of Karabakh to their homes, are we speaking of tanks? Is it normal that residents of Karabakh return?”
In his statement, Aliyev had declared that “there is no Lake Sevan, there is only Lake Goycha,” and that “the return of Azerbaijani people to their historic lands in present‑day Armenia should not alarm the Armenian people” because “they will come not with tanks but by cars.”
