Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry slams news about flights of Armenian "fighters" over Khankendi as information adventurism

By Trend

Today, some local electronic media circulated the news spread by the Armenian press about the alleged flight of fighter aircraft of Armenia over Khankendi, said in the statement of Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry June 17.

"The radar stations of the Azerbaijan Air Defense Forces Troops keep under constant control the airspace of the country, including the Khojaly airport and monitor the movement of all air assets. The information about the routes of any flights is immediately and automatically transferred to the command post of the Air Force", the ministry said.

According to the ministry, on the photo and video of the Khojaly airport, made by special technical means on June 16 and 17, the presence of any fighter is not observed.

"Near the runway, there are one L-39 training aircraft, two Yak-52 training aircraft, one lightweight airplane CH-701, as well as a multipurpose Mi-8 helicopter. All of them are outdated manufactures that have not been involved in flights for a long time.

The purposeful dissemination of such provocative news by the enemy is aimed at increasing tensions on the front line, and therefore we ask the local mass media not to react to such information adventurism of Armenia", said in the statement of the ministry.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.