Thomas de Waal is a senior fellow with Carnegie Europe, specializing in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus.He is the author of numerous publications about the region, including The Caucasus: An Introduction (Oxford University Press), Great Catastrophe: Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide (Oxford University Press, 2015), and, on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War (NYU Press, second edition 2013). He also co-authored (with Carlotta Gall) the book Chechnya: Calamity in the Caucasus (NYU Press, 1997), for which the authors were awarded the James Cameron Prize for Distinguished Reporting. Diwan interviewed de Waal in late September to discuss the Azerbaijani victory in Nagorno-Karabakh, and the implications of this for the broader region.
Michael Young: Many people in the Arab world and Iran have watched developments in Nagorno-Karabakh quite closely. Why do you think that is? In other words, in what ways have events in the Caucasus actually been an extension of the politics of the Middle East?
Thomas de Waal: Yes, we used to think of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict within a European framework. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) was the main mediator. Russia and the Western countries had interests on both sides. Turkey supported Azerbaijan, but still wanted to resolve the conflict diplomatically. Iran had interests, but was quite marginal. The war in 2020 changed all that. Turkey gave full military support to Azerbaijan, which was crucial in it winning a victory over the Armenians. Russian peacekeepers were deployed in Nagorno-Karabakh. The OSCE format collapsed and the West was marginalized.
In that context, the conflict got mixed up in wider Middle Eastern dynamics. Iran started backing Armenia more closely, because it was worried about Azerbaijan and Turkey fully controlling its northern border. Israel now supports Azerbaijan, maybe because of the Iran factor. Beyond that, Pakistan supplies weapons to Azerbaijan and India to Armenia.
MY: Observers have commented on the fact that Russia allowed Azerbaijani forces to advance in Nagorno-Karabakh, which to them suggested Moscow’s tilt in Baku’s favor. Do you agree, and more broadly what are the geopolitical implications if indeed Russia implicitly sided with Azerbaijan?
TDW: Azerbaijan has always been skillful at navigating between Russia and the West, telling each that it is a useful partner—for different reasons obviously. What was quite brazen last week was how Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev had evidently been giving reassurances to Western partners, including U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, that he would not use force, before he went ahead and did so anyway. There was clearly a side deal with Moscow. Russian peacekeepers stood down, Moscow did not condemn the assault, and Azerbaijan quickly overwhelmed Nagorno-Karabakh. The Russians then stepped in to negotiate a ceasefire that was actually a full surrender of the Armenian side in the territory. For the Azerbaijani side, it was a crushing victory. But they should bear the consequences of a strong pivot away from the West and toward Russia.
The next issue is Armenia itself. The Russians are pretty much openly calling for the removal of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan for being too pro-Western. Azerbaijan, Russia, and Turkey seem to have a joint agenda of forcing Armenia to accept their terms for a road and rail route across Armenian territory to the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan, with minimal controls from the Armenian side and guarded by Russian border guards. There will be veiled threats of the use of force if Armenia does not agree to this. This is the next potential frontier of conflict with which Western governments need to deal. Suddenly, it is falling on the West to be the last defender of Armenia—with Iran ironically the back-up player.
MY: There are those in the United States and Israel who support Azerbaijan, seeing this as a way of destabilizing Iran, which has a large Azeri population that has in the past voiced pro-autonomy sentiments. Is this calculation realistic? And in what ways might Azerbaijan’s successes, backed by Turkey, affect the situation in Iran?
TDW: Yes, too many people see this region through a Russia prism or an Iran prism. That included John Bolton for a while, when he was president Donald Trump’s national security adviser, who tried to make his conflict mediation all about Iran. The Azerbaijanis have used that to their advantage and won over many neoconservatives in their time. But I think there are some level-headed people in Baku who know that destabilizing Iran could be dangerous and that the Iranians have their own levers of destabilization in Azerbaijan, such as Shia clerics or some members of the Talysh minority.
MY: The Armenian government has come under fire at home for not doing much to assist the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh. What are the lessons for Armenia from the latest debacle in the region?
TDW: Armenia will be in turmoil for a long time. The loss of Nagorno-Karabakh is the biggest defeat and trauma for Armenians since the fall of Kars to the Turks in 1920. It’s probably bigger than that. There will be a lot of people trying to get rid of Pashinyan, as I said. Hopefully it will be a time of standing together, not one of fratricidal recrimination.
