AZAL plane crash: We have clearly expressed our demands to the Russian side, President of Azerbaijan

We have clearly expressed our demands to the Russian side, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev told in an interview with Azerbaijan's television, Kazinform News Agency cites AZERTAC.

These demands were officially communicated to them on 27 December. What do these demands consist of? First of all, the Russian side must apologize to Azerbaijan. Secondly, it must acknowledge its guilt. Thirdly, those responsible must be punished, brought to criminal responsibility, and compensation must be paid to the Azerbaijani state, to the injured passengers and crew members. These are our conditions. The first of these was fulfilled yesterday. I do hope that the other conditions will also be accepted. All these conditions are fair. There are no extraordinary demands or issues here; all of this is based on international experience and normal human conduct. That’s it. I repeat, the Azerbaijani public is and will be informed about all sides of the issue. The conditions I mentioned are conveyed to the public through you, of course, and I repeat, I do hope that our conditions are accepted.

As reported earlier, 38 died and 29 survived as Baku-Grozny flight J2-8243 operated by Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) crashed near Aktau, Kazakhstan, on December 25.

As previously stated, on December 28 the Presidents held a telephone conversation at the Russian side’s initiative. Vladimir Putin apologized for the incident with the Airlines plane in Russia's airspace, and offered condolences the to victims’ families.

As written before, the Kazakh Transport Ministry revealed the details of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash near Aktau.

Earlier it was reported that the bodies of 10 deceased people out of 38 have been so far identified.

The chronology of the tragedy is available here.