Azerbaijan's ambassador to Georgia, Namik Aliyev, offered a little public service announcement the other day. It went something like this:
"People of Georgia be warned! THEY are here! They are snapping up lands and property on your coast, they are singing and dancing in your beachfront bars and restaurants. But one day soon, they will organize themselves into a force, wipe out other ethnic groups, claim your country as their historic homeland, and set up an empire that will stretch from sea to sea (the Black and Caspian Seas, to be specific)."
In Ambassador Aliyev's telling, these are, of course, the Armenians.
Claiming that Azerbaijan’s nemesis, Armenia, is on the verge of fulfilling an eons-old dream of establishing a “Velikaya [Great] Armenia,” Aliyev on February 23 urged Tbilisi to join forces with Baku to stop the process of "Armeniazation" before it is too late.
Georgia may respond with an awkward laugh to such wild prophecies, and try to change the subject, but Azerbaijan is, in fact, pressing the Caucasus’ hottest button.
All three Caucasus countries tend to long for those episodes in their histories, however brief they may have been, when they dominated their surrounding area. While a frequent subject of jokes within Georgia, any mention of a "Great Armenia" can spark no-holds-barred debates between Georgians and Armenians over which majority-Christian nation has the right to what land. And a history debate can go a long way in the Caucasus.
The Azerbaijanis know that. Which begs the question . . . why try to set one off now?
Giorgi Lomsadze is a journalist based in Tbilisi, and author of Tamada Tales.
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