The attempt to revive an old name that is foreign to the Azerbaijani people within the walls of TASS is surprising.

Axar.az reports, citing a statement by the Azerbaijani State News Agency Azertac.

"On July 31, the TASS news agency of the Russian Federation published a news item titled 'Aivazovsky's monument demolished in Stepanakert."

As can be seen from the headline, the management of the agency, with which AZERTAC has maintained and highly valued friendly relations, partnerships, and even friendships for many decades, suddenly changed its previous course and removed the toponym "Stepanakert" from the dustbin of history. However, until recently, the agency used the official and historical name of the city - Khankendi - in its news (for example, July 19 - https://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/24558165, July 24 - https://tass.ru/politika/24602463, etc.). The attempt to revive a name that is foreign and old to the Azerbaijani people within the walls of TASS is surprising and raises a legitimate question: what has changed in the past week that the Russian state news agency decided to “revive” a toponym from the former Soviet era?

Khankendi is the historical name of a settlement that arose at the end of the 18th century. Translated from Azerbaijani, it means “Khan’s Village”. Khankendi was the home of Ibrahimkhalil Khan, where the ruler kept a herd of Karabakh horses.

After the establishment of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) by the Bolshevik leadership on July 7, 1923 (this step itself became a mine that would explode over time and laid the foundation for injustice and imbalance in the administrative-territorial division of Armenia and Azerbaijan), the administrative center of the region, Khankendi, was renamed “Stepanakert” on August 10 of the same year in honor of Stepan Shaumyan, the “head of the Baku commune,” who was, in fact, the bloody executioner of the Azerbaijani people, as Soviet historiography wrote.

On November 26, 1991, by a decision of the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the city was given its previous historical name was returned. On October 15, 2023, the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev raised the State Flag of the Republic of Azerbaijan in the main square of the city, and on the day of the last presidential elections - February 7, 2024, he voted in this city, calling the ballot he threw into the box "the last nail in the coffin of Armenian separatists."

The headline and text of today's news from the TASS agency caused surprise and even indignation in Azerbaijani society. The retreat of the leadership of the Russian state media organization from the previous course undermines the traditional friendly relations between our agencies and collectives and sends a dangerous signal to the entire Russian media space. Acting solely out of goodwill and the desire to preserve long-term relations between the two agencies, AZERTAC calls on its colleagues in TASS to focus on improving relations rather than repeating such steps in the future and deepening possible disagreements.

In turn, AZERTAC has the authority to declare that the agency is determined to maintain good relations with TASS, while at the same time, "We expect our colleagues to correct the mistake. If the Azerbaijani side does not show mutual understanding and respect, then with great regret we will be forced to recall and use the historical names of Kaliningrad (Konigsberg), Orenburg (Orynbor), Volgograd (Sarysu), Grozny (Solzha-Gala), Novorossiysk (Sudjuk-Kale), Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk (Toyohara), Yuzhno-Kurilsk (Furukamappu), Petrozavodsk (Petroskoy), Izhevsk (Izhkar), Volga River (Itil), and several other names in response," the statement said.