The West may wake up very late when a new conflict between Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan starts, and Thomas de Waal predicts that this conflict will happen. UK journalist de Waal, who is also a senior fellow with Carnegie Europe specializing in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus region as well as an expert on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, said this during a discussion held on Tuesday.

According to him, the presence of Russian peacekeepers Nagorno-Karabakh restrains the situation, but the year 2025 will be a turning point, as it is not known what the balance of forces will be by then.

The West is a player in the issues related to the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and economic issues, but the Western players have almost no leverage in the Karabakh issue. All the attention of the West and Russia is focused on Ukraine, and the most important thing for the West now is the survival of Ukraine, the analyst added.

He noted with regret that few people focus on the situation around Nagorno-Karabakh, and added that the European format has not been functioning for half a year now.

Thomas de Waal stated that the situation has worsened in recent months. He assessed the recent establishment of the Azerbaijani checkpoint as another step towards a new conflict, but until then, Azerbaijan uses tactics to “suffocate” Karabakh and refuses to fulfill the provisions of the trilateral statement of November 9, 2020.

Azerbaijan has challenged Russia first of all. We know that the main international player is Russia. It is the only player who can do something physically. The main puzzle for de Waal is Russia's inaction in this case. Why is Russia so inactive in this situation? Such steps lead to the loss of significance of the Russian peacekeeping mission. What is the purpose of such a mission when there is no free communication between Armenia and Karabakh? For de Waal, that is the main question to which he do not have an answer.

He explained Azerbaijani president Aliyev's current hurriedness with the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey.

Thomas de Waal did not rule out the defeat of incumbent Turkish President Erdogan in the elections, which, inn his view, will trigger a new phase of Azerbaijani-Turkish relations.

Turkey could stop being such an unequivocal ally of Azerbaijan, as Ankara may have its own agenda in the South Caucasus, and Turkey may begin to consider Azerbaijan not as an equal partner, but as a younger brother, Thomas de Waal concluded.