U.S. Congressmen work to secure support for Karabakh peace-keeping

PanARMENIAN.Net - Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) and Ranking Democrat Eliot Engel (D-NY) of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee are asking their Congressional colleagues to join a bipartisan call for renewed U.S. leadership in keeping the peace along the Nagorno Karabakh line of contact, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).

The two senior legislators are currently collecting Congressional signatures on a letter addressed to Ambassador James Warlick, the U.S. representative to the OSCE's Minsk Group tasked with reaching a resolution of Nagorno Karabakh-related security and status issues. In their letter, they specifically call for the U.S. and OSCE to abandon their failed policy of false parity in responding to acts of aggression.

In a related move, U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Ranking Democrat Adam Schiff (D-CA) has called upon the State Department to refrain from responding to future acts of Azerbaijani aggression with statements suggesting a "false equivalence between Azeri and Armenian behavior.

Royce-Engel Congressional sign-on letter proposes three concrete pro-peace steps that would, in the short-term, save lives and help to avert war.

Over the longer term, the letter notes, "these steps could contribute to a comprehensive and enduring peace for all the citizens of the region: an agreement from all sides not to deploy snipers along the line of contact; the placement of OSCE-monitored, advanced gunfire-locator systems and sound-ranging equipment to determine the source of attacks along the line of contact; the deployment of additional OSCE observers along the line of contact to better monitor cease-fire violations.”

The Conressmen also urged Warlick to publicly condemn specific acts of aggression along the line of contact.