Andrzej Kasprzyk: Baku has not provided security guarantees to OSCE delegation in area where Mi-24 was downed
Official Baku has not provided guarantee to the OSCE mission to survey the area where the helicopter had crashed, no monitoring has been performed in this connection, stated the personal representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk in the air of "Artsakh Public TV" , reports the "Caucasian Knot".
On November 18, OSCE mission had planned to carry out monitoring on the contact line between the NKR Defense Army and Azerbaijan in Askeran direction. The monitoring has passed without incident, but the observers, despite the demands of the Karabakh party, refused to visit the area where the Azerbaijani military forces had downed the Mi-24 helicopter.
"We tried to carry out monitoring by the OSCE on the contact line where the helicopter was shot down, but Baku has not given any guarantees for the safety of the OSCE delegation in this area," said today the personal representative of the OSCE chairman.
According to Kasprzyk, every monitoring is planned in advance and applied for, in order to carry out preparatory works beforehand. "We had applied for this monitoring before the incident with the helicopter occurred. Naturally, after the tragedy, I wanted to carry out a monitoring in the area where the helicopter was downed, but my colleague in Azerbaijan said that the situation in this area is tensed, and it is impossible to guarantee the security which we need for our work," stated Kasprzyk.
Therefore, he stated that "it was decided to conduct monitoring according to the plan."
Kasprzyk also noted that talks on helicopter incident are still in process. "I understand your concern. I do whatever I can, in order to have access to the helicopter as soon as possible," said the Ambassador. According to him, this issue will be discussed in Baku this week.
The area of the contact line, where was held the scheduled monitoring of the OSCE today is almost 12 kilometers far from the place where the Azerbaijani military downed the Mi-24 of the NKR Air Forces on November 12.
As NKR Defense Ministry press service reported earlier, on November 12, at around 1:45 pm, Nagorno Karabakh Air Forces’ Mi-24 helicopter was shot by the Azerbaijani Armed Forces during military training flight in the airspace in the eastern section of Karabakh – Azerbaijan Line of Contact. The land, on which the incident occurred, is in close proximity to the line of contact. Opponent after the incident continued intense bombardment scene from weapons of different caliber. The place where the helicopter was shot is close to the Line of Contact. The enemy continued to fire shots from weapons of different calibers after the incident.
Meanwhile, the press secretary of Armenian Defense Minister Artsrun Hovhannisyan wrote on his Facebook page that Azerbaijani Armed Forces have carried out an unprecedented provocation on the border with the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh; this has also led to escalation of the situation. In the same time the fabrications of the Azerbaijani side, as if the Armenian helicopters had attacked their positions and they allegedly had merely responded to this step, are senseless. "The study of the wreckage of the helicopter will confirm that he was not armed. The escalation of the Azerbaijani side has continued even after the helicopter fall down. Moreover, the Azerbaijani side continued shelling, not allowing even to get closer to the pilots. The consequences of this unprecedented escalation will be very harmful for the Azerbaijani side and will remain as a stain on the conscience of the military-political leadership of Azerbaijan. Captain of the helicopter was Major Sergei Sahakyan. Information about the fate of the crew will be given later," Artsrun Hovhannisyan stated.