Andrzej Kasprzyk and Seyran Ohanyan.
Armenia’s Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan met with Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson in Office Andrzej Kasprzyk on November 19.
The interlocutors spoke about the shooting down of the Karabakh Defense Army helicopter by Azerbaijan near the Line of Contact on November12 and the fate of the three killed pilots who continue to remain at the crash site. Azerbaijan’s armed forces continues to fire in the direction of the site, making it impossible to retrieve the bodies of the slain pilots. Ohanyan and Kasprzyk also discussed the steps being coordinated by the countries of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs in this regard.
A day earlier, on November 18, Andrzej Kasprzyk had met with the leadership of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic about the incident. It was planned that Kasprzyk would be allowed to go to the helicopter crash site, however monitoring of the Line of Contact took place at a predetermined location which was 10-12 kilometers from the actual site.
During an interview on Karabakh’s public television, Kasprzyk noted that Baku was unwilling to provide security guarantees to carry out the monitoring at the crash site. Kasprzyk said that he will continue efforts to ensure this happens.
The unarmed helicopter was performing military drills near the Karabakh-Azerbaijan Line of Contact on November 12 when it was shot down by Azerbaijani armed forces killing the three pilots on board.
On November 13, the government of Nagorno Karabakh applied to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Stepanakert asking that the organization mediate to ensure the repatriation of the bodies of the pilots. On November 18, Baku said that they will return the bodies only when they deem it necessary.
