Albania, Armenia, Aber-baijan - how to end wars that do not even exist and Belgium is a beautiful city

The president of the free world lifts world history to the level of a tongue-twister test. "I believe we have settled Aber-baijan and Albania," says Donald Trump, 79, delivering the rare moment when a vowel carries more geopolitical weight than an ammunition train. The man who ends wars the way others solve crosswords confuses Armenia with Albania yet again - and, in passing, invents the hitherto unknown country "Aber-baijan," a place where grammar and geography might be applying for asylum together.

While the index cards are still rustling in the press rows, a smile flickers across the face of Edi Rama in Copenhagen, that Albanian prime minister who paints politically and governs artistically. Next to Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, Rama turns to Emmanuel Macron and delivers the most precise slap of the evening: "You should congratulate Ilham Aliyev and me. Trump has ended the conflict between Albania and Azerbaijan." One can practically hear a globe blushing in the background. In Paris they will say later it was "humorous." In Washington they call it "foreign policy by autocorrect."

One might think it was a slip, but the punchline has pedigree. Already in the previous week Trump mixed up the countries as if he were holding the South Caucasus map like an Ikea shelf: lots of "A" in the name, the screws are missing, but the thing somehow stands. Anyone who still had doubts got them certified. Gaffe number two, this time with a British trim, and again the proud self-congratulation that he had settled a war he cannot even pronounce correctly. World peace in freestyle.

Rama’s pinprick is more than mockery; it is a lesson in diplomatic hygiene. Instead of launching into a grand reckoning, he turns the volume to irony and lets the US president’s statement evaporate in its own echo. No outrage, no thunder - just a sentence so dry it sparks: "Trump has ended the conflict between Albania and Azerbaijan." In Tirana and Baku they know: the sentence hits the Achilles tendon, not the ankle. Because whoever confuses two countries also confuses responsibility with the spotlight. "Aber-baijan" will go down in the annals, somewhere between a typo and a granola bar called world order. And yet it is more than a punchline. It is a diagnosis of the political age in which the soundcheck is taken for statecraft and the teleprompter passes for peacemaker. "I believe we have ... settled" - the I is big, the thinking small, the sentences wander across the continent like tourists without a city map. Meanwhile diplomats sort out reality in the background: Armenia is not Albania, one mistake is not two, and a press conference is not a peace treaty.

They say names are fate. In this case they are geography. Albania belongs in the Balkans, Armenia in the South Caucasus, and "Aber-baijan" - well - in the display case of political cryptids, right next to the "Bowling Green Massacre" and "herd immunity by Easter." Those who end wars that do not even exist save just one thing in the end: the effort to understand them. What remains is the rhetorical smoke grenade that obscures the view for a while until someone opens the window and lets in air. Rama’s window was a joke. A good one. And a necessary one. Because satire in times like these is not the decoration of truth, it is the emergency exit. "You should congratulate us," he says to Macron and smiles as if he had just loosened a knot that others are pulling tighter with both hands. Aliyev nods politely, Macron smiles republicanly, and somewhere in an American newsroom an intern asks a search engine whether "Aber-baijan" is even a NATO member.

And if we are dreaming here right now, let us remember the wise words of Donald. J. Trump from June 16, 2016: "Belgium is a beautiful city."

It is a comforting thought that the world can still laugh at itself. But the laughter has teeth. Because behind the quirkiness lies a serious question: whoever confuses the map will eventually confuse the landmarks, and whoever turns countries into sounds turns politics into volume. "I believe we have ... settled." - let others put the periods. Edi Rama did it. End of story.