By Asbarez | Tuesday, 12 January 2016
BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN
For many years, the Armenian-American community has been dissatisfied with United States policy on Artsakh (Nagorno Karabagh).
Under the guise of neutrality, OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair James Warlick and his predecessors have put the blame on both sides of the conflict each time that Azerbaijan has opened fire on Armenia and Artsakh. Such an unfair approach has encouraged Pres. Aliyev to escalate his attacks.
To eliminate or at least minimize such bloody aggression, 85 members of Congress recently signed a joint letter urging the Obama Administration to implement the following three steps regarding the border between the two countries: 1. withdraw the snipers; 2. increase the number of international monitors; and 3. deploy gunfire locators. Not surprisingly, Azerbaijan has rejected all three proposals, while Armenia, Artsakh, and the Minsk Group of mediators (France, Russia, and United States) have accepted them.
Last week, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce held a classified briefing with Amb. Warlick concerning the implementation of the proposals which he and Cong. Eliot Engel had initiated. Before the closed-door meeting, the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) had circulated a set of 10 suggested questions for Amb. Warlick. While it not known if these questions were raised during the congressional briefing, the Obama Administration should be asked to respond publicly to the 10 questions so that everyone becomes aware of its position on the Artsakh conflict.
To ensure that an official answer is received, I suggest the posting of these questions on the White House website, under the “Petitions” section. The website states that the Obama Administration will issue a formal response in 60 days to any petition that gathers over 100,000 signatures within 30 days of its posting. Azeris have already taken advantage of this unique opportunity by posting on the White House website two anti-Armenian petitions which gathered 105,686 and 126,828 signatures respectively. As expected, the White House did issue a statement in response to the two Azeri petitions.
Below are the 10 ANCA questions which should be posted as a petition on the White House website:
I believe that a well-publicized petition can gather much more than 100,000 signatures within 30 days of its posting on the White House website, particularly if prominent individuals with a large number of followers endorse the petition.
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