Azerbaijan President Aliyev asks Russia to pay compensation for downing passenger plane

By Burc Eruygur

ISTANBUL (AA) – Azerbaijan demanded on Sunday that Russia admit guilt for downing its passenger plane, punish those responsible, and pay compensation.

Speaking to reporters in Baku, President Ilham Aliyev confirmed that the Azerbaijan Airlines plane, which crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau, was heavily damaged by ground fire and nearly lost control due to radio-electronic warfare.

"The facts are that the Azerbaijani civil plane was damaged from the outside on Russian territory, near Grozny, and nearly lost control. We also know that our plane has been rendered uncontrollable due to radio-electronic warfare," he stated.

The AZAL flight, en route from Baku to Grozny in Russia's Chechen Republic, crashed 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from Aktau on the Caspian Sea coast on Wednesday.

Kazakh authorities reported that 38 people were killed in the crash of the Embraer 190 aircraft, which had 67 people on board, while 29 survived. Investigations into the incident are ongoing in both Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.