Two former United States ambassadors (one to Armenia, the other to Azerbaijan) have signed a public declaration entitled “A Call for Peace in Karabakh”.

The declaration begins:

“We, the undersigned citizens of Azerbaijan, Armenia and other countries demand that the parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict stop the shooting and attacks on the Line of Contact and Armenian-Azerbaijani border immediately.”

Signed by forty or so scholars, academics, journalists and NGOs from both Armenia and Azerbaijan, the declaration demands:

“… that, as a sign of good will, either side stops shooting unilaterally and then asks the other side to do the same.”

Arguing that the 1994 ceasefire has not stopped dozens of young people being killed each year, the signatories:

“We demand that mediators and parties to the conflict find a new legal and practical framework that will stop the violence. In 2008 in Helsinki the foreign ministers of France, Russia and the United States called for the removal of snipers from the ceasefire line. The UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon endorsed the idea in 2010. We regret that that proposal, which could have saved dozens of lives, has never been implemented.”

See full text HERE