Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has demanded a full admission of responsibility from Russia for causing the recent Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash in Kazakhstan and has called for those responsible to be punished.
The passenger plane had been fired on from the ground while in Russian airspace over the Chechen capital of Grozny, Aliyev told national broadcaster AzTV on Sunday.
He said he did not believe that Russian air defences had shot down the plane on purpose, but that certain Russian authorities had attempted to cover up the cause of the crash.
On Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized to Aliyev following the crash that resulted in 38 fatalities. There were 29 survivors at the crash site near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan on the Caspian Sea.
“It’s clear that the final version will only become known after the black boxes have been evaluated,” he said. But the facts were already creating a picture, he added.
The pilots had lost control over Grozny when electronic measures were used. It had then been hit by fire from the ground, Aliyev said.
“Unfortunately we heard nothing but idiotic versions from Russia for the first three days,” Aliyev told the broadcaster.
“One of the things that frustrated and surprised us was that Russian officials spread the version of an explosion of a gas balloon,” he said. That showed that the Russian side had attempted a cover-up, and this was dishonest, Aliyev said.
Paying his respects to the victims at Baku airport, he praised the courage and professionalism of the pilots who guided the damaged plane to an emergency landing in Kazakhstan.
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds his annual end-of-year press conference. Putin has apologized to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev following the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane in Kazakhstan that resulted in 38 fatalities, according to the Kremlin. -/Kremlin Press Office/dpa
