With Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's much-anticipated Kazan pow-wow with Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan just days away, one senior Azerbaijani politician has a message he's eager to share with you: Might makes right.
When Azerbaijan parades its military might on Army Day on June 26, “[o]nce more everyone will see the change in correlation of power in favor of Azerbaijan in every direction,” declared ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party Deputy Executive Secretary Mubariz Gurbanli. “The moral, psychological, economic, social and political superiority of our nation will convince external forces to put pressure on Armenia."
And let's not forget economic muscle. Armenia can invest all it wants in its economy, Gurbanli claimed, but it will never compare with hydrocarbon-rich Azerbaijan. Why? As News.az paraphrased it: "The reason is the dynamic development of Azerbaijan and the economic strength of our country."
The timing of Gurbanli's observations is not accidental. The Army Day display comes a day after the Kazan summit, an event at which Azerbaijan, conceivably, intends to parade its diplomatic might as well. Some analysts have gone into orbit over expectations for the summit, characterized as everything from a last chance for Karabakh peacemaking to a chance for a mega-breakthrough.
But in this macho match, Armenia has its own words of warning. Last week, the deputy commander of Armenia's air force announced that Armenia has manufactured its own "quite serious unmanned aerial vehicles" that will let it, "like developed NATO countries," make "targeted strikes on any enemy target, economic facility and the like."
Call it a draw for now?
Giorgi Lomsadze is a journalist based in Tbilisi, and author of Tamada Tales.
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