The Serbian “Politika” news portal published an article highlighting President Ilham Aliyev’s remarks made during the meeting with the families of the crew members who lost their lives and the surviving flight attendants from the crash of an Embraer 190 passenger plane operated by Azerbaijan Airlines CJSC on the Baku-Grozny route.

The news portal quoted the Azerbaijani President as saying: “If timely measures had been taken to close the Russian airspace near the city of Grozny, if all the rules of ground services had been observed, as well as proper coordination between the armed forces of the Russian Federation and civilian services, this tragedy would not have happened.

The cover-up of this incident by Russian state agencies and the focus on absurd theories causes surprise, regret, and rightful indignation.

And we will demand justice and the punishment of those responsible for the deaths of Azerbaijani citizens in this disaster. And we demand justice, we demand punishment of the guilty, we demand full transparency and human behavior.”