Warlick backs bipartisan congressional calls to withdraw snipers, add observers, deploy gunfire locators
Ambassador James Warlick, the lead U.S. negotiator in the Nagorno Karabakh peace process, has voiced the Obama Administration’s support for common-sense measures, advanced by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) and Ranking Member Eliot Engel (D-NY) and a growing number of their Congressional colleagues, to stop increased cease-fire violations along the Karabakh line of contact, Asbarez reports.
In a statement issued to H1 Television’s Haykaram Nahapetyan, Ambassador Warlick explained, “We fully support the initiatives proposed by Congressman Royce and Congressman Engel. Confidence building measures and people-to-people programs reduce tensions and lay the basis for a lasting peace. We have raised each of these initiatives with the parties and will continue to pursue all steps that can lead to a negotiated settlement,” concluded Warlick.
Chairman Royce and Ranking Member Engel are currently collecting Congressional signatures on a letter addressed to Ambassador Warlick – the U.S. representative to the OSCE’s Minsk Group tasked with reaching a resolution of Nagorno Karabakh-related security and status issues – specifically calling for the U.S. and OSCE to abandon their failed policy of false parity in responding to acts of aggression, noting that: “The longstanding U.S. and OSCE practice of responding to each new attack with generic calls upon all parties to refrain from violence has failed to de-escalate the situation. Instead, this policy of artificial evenhandedness has dangerously increased tensions. There will be no peace absent responsibility.”
The letter outlines 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.
Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh have both expressed support for these life-saving initiatives; Azerbaijan has not.