US President Donald Trump mistakenly called Armenia "Albania", claiming to have resolved its conflict with Azerbaijan, which never involved the Balkan country, intellinews.com reported.
The gaffe, at least the third in a row, occurred during a press conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, as Trump touted his reputation as a peacemaker.
In fact, it was Armenia that officially agreed to a peace agreement with Azerbaijan at the White House last month, ending decades of tension in the South Caucasus region.
The US president struggled with the pronunciation of Azerbaijan, pausing for a long time before saying "Aber...baijan".
"For example, we settled "Aber... bayjan and Albania, this has been going on for years, it was never going to be settled," Trump said in a televised press conference, confusing Armenia with Albania.
"When they were in my office, they sat on either side. So far away. I didn't know you could be that far away. And as we were together for an hour, they kept getting closer and closer. And when we were done, we all hugged each other.“
Trump has made similar mistakes before regarding the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Just days ago, he told Fox News that he had stopped a war between “Azerbaijan and Albania“.
In August, during an appearance on the conservative talk show “The Mark Levin Show“, he again stumbled over his pronunciation: “For Azerbaijan – this went on for 34, 35 years, uh, Albania, I mean, think about it, it went on for years.“
Trump has repeatedly listed his foreign policy triumphs in recent months as the White House attempts to portray him as a “president of peace“, leading to speculation that he is in the running for the Nobel Peace Prize.
In addition to the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, he has repeatedly described other conflicts he claims to have resolved, including those between India and Pakistan, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Serbia and Kosovo, and Egypt and Ethiopia.