The Milli Majlis Committee for Regional Affairs held an online meeting on 14 December, opening which the Committee Chairman Siyavush Novruzov announced that there were 2 items on the agenda.

In the first order, Mr Novruzov presented the Bill ‘On Renaming the Saghiyan Village in Shamakhi Province of the Azerbaijan Republic as Guneshli’. He explained that the process of renaming some villages and provinces in the de-occupied territories of our country had begun at the suggestion of President Ilham Aliyev. Even though Shamakhi Province is situated far from both the state border and the former line of contact, the current name of its village of Saghiyan is totally unrelated to the Azerbaijani ethnos, its heritage and values, history, geography and the everyday life of the local populace. Our wicked neighbours sometimes misinterpret such placenames to their certain ends and use them as a means of pressing their ‘daydreams’ upon the global community. Mr Novruzov went further to say that it had been found expedient to rename the village located in the southern part of the province in question as Guneshli following the relevant consultations with the Toponymy Commission and in view of the wishes of the local community. The word ‘Guneshli’ means not merely ‘sunny’ but also ‘happy’, ‘full of joy’, ‘bright’ and ‘radiant’, according to Mr Novruzov.

As regards the second item on the agenda, namely, the draft amendments to the ‘List of the Municipalities of the Azerbaijan Republic’ contained in the Law ‘On the Municipal Areas and Lands’, it has to do with the first item. That is, it is proposed to replace the Saghiyan Municipality of Shamakhi Province with the Guneshli Municipality of the same province in the aforementioned list.

The Chairman of the Agrarian Policy Committee Tahir Rzayev and the Committee members Kamran Bayramov, Aghil Mammadov, Sattar Mehbaliyev and Mazahir Efendiyev deliberated upon the agenda items. The meeting participants also talked about forming municipalities in the reconquered provinces, their speedy repopulation, implementing the land reform, establishing new territorial units and ensuring rational operation of the local self-government authorities. The relevant state mechanisms and international experience were mentioned in this regard, too.

The Committee members Nizami Jafarov, Javid Osmanov, Aliabbas Salahzade, Eshan Musayev, Malik Hasanov, Emin Hajiyev and Sabina Khasayeva, too, were taking part in the meeting.

In the end, it was decided to recommend that both matters should be tabled for deliberations at a plenary meeting of the Milli Majlis.

The Press and Public Relations Department 
The Milli Majlis