YEREVAN, JANUARY 27, ARMENPRESS. Senior Foreign Affairs Committee Member (D-CA) Brad Sherman and House Intelligence Committee Ranking Democrat Adam Schiff (D-CA) urged USA Secretary Kerry to weigh in against failed European anti-Karabakh resolution. “Armenpress” was informed by the Armenian National Committee of America.

In a letter to Secretary of State Kerry, Rep. Schiff urged the State Department to “make clear at the highest levels its view that the resolution is one-sided, inaccurate, and counterproductive to the cause of peace and stability.” Noting that Azerbaijan has “taken numerous provocative actions on the Line of Contact resulting in the death and injury of civilians and military personnel,” Rep. Schiff expressed concern that the resolution fails to mention that President Aliyev “continues to reject the installation of technologies along the Line of Contact to monitor the use of snipers and artillery.” Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh have agreed to the placement of such monitoring measures, which were advanced by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) and Eliot Engel (D-NY) and over 80 U.S. House Members in November, 2015.

Rep. Sherman, in his letter to Secretary Kerry, urged that the U.S. take immediate action to defeat the measure which sought to undermine the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group’s leadership role in the Nagorno Karabakh peace negotiations. “Doing away with the Minsk Group is not only bad policy but an insult to the American people and to the hard working and dedicated diplomats at the State Department,” explained Rep. Sherman.

On January 26 PACE refused to adopt draft resolution on “Escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and the other occupied territories of Azerbaijan” by rapporteur Robert Walter (no longer a PACE member). 66 MPs voted for, 70 – against the report.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted rapporteur Milica Marković’s (Bosnia and Herzegovina) draft resolution on “Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water” making some changes and revisions to the draft. 98 MPs voted for, 71 – against. 40 MPs abstained.