Azerbaijan announced on Monday that Russia has committed to investigate, identify and punish anyone responsible for the fatal December 25 crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane in Kazakhstan.
Azerbaijan’s General Prosecutor’s office said in a statement that Moscow has assured Baku that “intensive measures are being taken to identify those responsible and bring them to justice.”
Azerbaijan Airlines J2-8243 had diverted across the Caspian Sea, from its destination in Chechnya to western Kazakhstan before it went down near the Kazakh city of Aktau, killing 38 persons.
On Sunday, Azerbaijani President, Ilham Aliyev, accused Russia of shooting down its passenger plane last week, leaving 29 survivors, out of 67 persons on board.
Speaking to state television, Aliyev said the plane had been damaged by shooting from the ground in Russia, alleging that Russia had lied about the cause of the disaster.
He said, “Our plane was shot down by accident,” Aliyev said, adding that the plane had come under electronic jamming and had then been shot at while it was approaching the southern Russian city of Grozny.