The accumulation of troops and military equipment on the borders of Iran, Azerbaijan and Turkey is one of the main events in the world at the moment. If, God forbid, hostilities suddenly start, even as a result of unforeseen circumstances or a provocation by a third party, it could escalate into a major regional war involving dozen countries. In fact, the Greater Middle East can become a boiling caldron. Why did this happen? Is a regional disaster inevitable?

All you have to do is to look at the map to understand that three major states in the South Caucasus, Russia, Turkey and Iran, have overriding national interests. Status quo was formed during the Soviet period, as well as before the Second Artsakh War: these three countries were in a balanced distance from each other, and the three South Caucasus countries serves as buffers among them.

After the war, the geopolitical balance was broken, reviving with it many problems among those countries, which were interconnected with internal and external challenges they faced. For Turkey the main problem was caused by the Kurds, for Iran - the Azeris and Kurds, for Russia - about 20 million Muslims living in its territory, most of whom are of Turkish origin. Each of them is trying to keep its influence in the South Caucasus and suppress possible separatist movements inside. Against this backdrop, the competition in the Caucasus will be fierce and will be accompanied by complications, including military ones. None of them can escape the inevitable losses and the danger of internal destabilization.

This is a brief description of the situation. At the same time, it should be noted that the Minsk Group co-chairing institute, which deals with the Artsakh issue, left out of its composition two countries with overriding interests here, Iran and Turkey. The latter proposed to create a "3 + 3" format, including the three countries of the South Caucasus and Russia, Iran and Turkey. This leaves the West out of the process, which Russia, Iran and Turkey agree on, but the Caucasian countries are afraid of, thus Armenia is afraid of the participation of Turkey, Azerbaijan of Iran, and Georgia of Russia, which complicates the implementation of this format, as well as opens the door for unwanted interference in the process by foreign countries.

In the current difficult situation, special attention needs to be paid to the creation of necessary communications, which will be of great geopolitical significance and will stimulate political and economic reforms and realignments from China to Israel and the Arab world.

The imbalance in the Caucasus, which began with the Artsakh war, has the potential for great shocks and great opportunities and, at the same time, is fraught with reshaping the political map.