Frank Pallone: Pompeo must insist on Royce-Engel agreement to monitor contact line

Congressman Frank Pallone took to Twitter on Monday to urge U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to insist on the 2015 Royce-Engel agreement to monitor the Artsakh-Azerbaijan line of contact.

“We would have definitive knowledge of which side violated the US-brokered ceasefire today if Azeris would allow international observers to monitor the line of contact, as prescribed by the 2015 Royce-Engel agreement. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo must insist on this,” he tweeted.

US senior legislators Ed Royce and Eliot Engel authored a bipartisan in 2015 letter urging the State Department to adopt a new approach to peace in Artsakh. The letter specifically called for implementation of three concrete, accountability-based steps toward peace:

1. An agreement by all sides to not deploy snipers, heavy arms, or any new weapons along the line-of-contact separating Artsakh and Azerbaijani forces.

2. The deployment of OSCE-monitored, advanced gunfire-locator systems and sound-ranging equipment to determine the source of attacks along the line-of-contact.

3. The introduction of additional OSCE observers along the line-of-contact to better monitor cease-fire violations.