Karabakh issue most worrying for Armenians, needs only experts’ approach

The comments of the Armenian experts cannot have any negative influence on the Karabakh conflict negotiation process, expert Edgar Elbakyan told Aysor.am, referring to the recently voiced claims that the comments of some experts may harm the process.

“Of course I do not agree with these claims and they really smell sadly. In time the social sciences and political science, in particular, were banned in the Soviet Union and we feel its consequences till now,” Elbakyan said.

He stressed that the opinions of the experts cannot affect the resolution of the issue as they are in different measuring platforms with the official positions.

“The comments of experts can have no impact on either the process of negotiations or the position of Azerbaijan as they are in different platforms, measurements and coordinating cores,” the expert said.

As to the comment that people not knowing about the issue make public statements about it, Elbakyan said that it is not a new phenomenon that “every day 3 million political analysts and military experts wake up in Armenia.”

He stressed that mass media is better to reproduce only high quality statements. “The Karabakh issue is the most worrying for the people and it is highly desirable for just specialists to refer to it,” he said, adding that non-professional texts about it spoil the field and Azerbaijan has nothing to do with it, they harm our domestic audience.

As to the frequent usage of “expert” term in mass media, Elbakyan said that it has no clear criteria.

“When we use expert, specialist words these are clear terms with clear meaning. For instance if we speak about expert on Azerbaijani affairs, we mean a person who is dealing, studying the issue for quite long, has certain package of tools and the methodology how to explain the phenomena. I can read about biology, but I am not aware of its methodology,” he said adding that a work of many years and clear methodological apparatus is necessary plus consistent work.

“You cannot be an expert on Azerbaijani issues for two months and then turn into Turkologist for it being more interesting for you. To be a specialist you need to be consistent,” he said.