Plane crash in Kazakhstan
Plane Crash in Kazakhstan
Plane crash in Kazakhstan
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The leader of Azerbaijan criticized the Russian response to the crash of a passenger jet that Azerbaijani officials said had most likely been hit by Russian air defenses.
By Anatoly Kurmanaev
Reporting from Berlin
The leader of Azerbaijan directly blamed Russia on Sunday for the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger jet last week, calling on Moscow to accept responsibility and offer compensation to victims.
President Ilham Aliyev said in an interview with Azerbaijan’s national broadcaster that a vague apology issued by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia a day earlier would not suffice to preserve friendly relations between the two former Soviet states.
The Embraer 190 plane was traveling from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Grozny in southern Russia on Wednesday, but deviated from its trajectory after encountering interference with its navigation systems and impact with external objects, according to the Azerbaijani government. The plane crashed shortly afterwards in Kazakhstan, killing 38 of the other 67 people on board, most of whom were Azerbaijani citizens.
Azerbaijani and U.S. officials, as well as international aviation experts, had said they believed that the plane was most likely shot down by a Russian air defense missile. Moscow, however, has not admitted responsibility.
Mr. Aliyev’s comments on Sunday offered the most direct rebuke yet of Kremlin’s position on the crash.
“Obviously today we can say that the plane was shot down through Russia,” Aliyev said in the interview, according to a summary published in English through Azerbaijan’s official news agency. “First of all, the Russian side will have to apologize to Azerbaijan. Secondly, you will have to admit your guilt. Thirdly, the guilty must be punished.
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