Azerbaijan rejects security guarantees to OSCE mission

PanARMENIAN.Net - Azerbaijan has not provided security guarantees to the OSCE Mission for investigation of helicopter crash site of Nagorno Karabakh’s helicopter that was shot down by Azeri armed forces last week.

Mi-24 helicopter was shot down during a training flight as result of ceasefire violation by the Azerbaijani armed forces on Nov 12, at about 1pm local time. According to the NKR Defense Ministry, the attack took place not far from the line of contact.

The NKR State Commission on prisoners of war, hostages and the missing persons of the appealed to the International Committee of Red Cross mission in the NKR with regards to the fate of the crewmembers, one of whom could possibly survive the crash. However, Azerbaijan continued to keep the site under fire.

“We tried to monitor the line of contact near the crash site, however Baku did not offer security guarantees to the OSCE Mission,” Andrzej Kasprzyk, special representative of the OSCE Chairperson in Office, said, according to Caucasian Knot.

“Any monitoring is planned beforehand and an application for preparatory works is filed. Azerbaijan rejected my request to hold monitoring of the crash site, explaining it by the tense situation at the contact line,” Kasprzyk said, adding that the issue will be discussed this week in Baku.