The President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, announced that his country is preparing documents to file a complaint with international judicial authorities concerning the tragedy of the Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) plane near Aktau.
Source: Minval, "European Truth".
According to Aliyev, the circumstances of the incident are "as clear as day," yet Azerbaijan has not received any substantive response from Russia for seven months.
The Attorney General of Azerbaijan, as Aliyev stated, has been sending requests to the head of the Russian Investigative Committee, but has only heard one thing in response: "The investigation is ongoing." The Azerbaijani president described this stance as counterproductive and confirmed Baku's intention to seek international justice.
He noted that Azerbaijan has informed Russia about the preparation of a dossier for the relevant lawsuit.
Aliyev recalled that the investigation into the Malaysian "Boeing" crash lasted over ten years.
"We are willing to wait ten years, but justice must prevail. Unfortunately, the current suspended situation does not foster the development of bilateral relations between Russia and Azerbaijan," he said.
Aliyev emphasized that Azerbaijan has a clear understanding of what happened to the AZAL plane, and Russian officials are also aware of this information. "The question arises: why are they not acting as any neighbor would in a similar situation?" he remarked.
Aliyev stated that Azerbaijan demands that Russia acknowledge its guilt, hold accountable those responsible for shooting down the plane, pay compensation to the families of the deceased, as well as reimburse the losses incurred by AZAL.
On December 25, 2024, an Embraer aircraft of Azerbaijan Airlines, traveling from Baku to Grozny, crashed near Aktau in Kazakhstan. As a result of the disaster, 38 people died.
At that time, President Ilham Aliyev claimed that the plane had been shot down from the ground.
On February 4, a government source in Azerbaijan told Reuters that the country has precise confirmation that the plane was shot down by the Russian air defense system "Pantsir-S".
In early July, Azerbaijani journalists presented a recording in which a command to open fire on the AZAL flight can be heard.
