Azerbaijani plane crash: Russia declines comment until probe completion

The Kremlin on Friday said it would not comment on the crash of an Azerbaijani passenger plane until an inquiry was completed.

This follows allegations that the jet was targeted by a Russian air defence missile.

Newspot recalls that the Azerbaijan Airlines jet crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau, an oil and gas hub, on Wednesday after going off course for undetermined reasons.

It was gathered that 38 of the 67 people on board died.

“An investigation is underway, and until the conclusions of the investigation, we do not consider we have the right to make any comments and we will not do so,” Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov said.

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The Embraer 190 aircraft was supposed to fly northwest from the Azerbaijani capital Baku to Grozny in Chechnya, southern Russia, but instead diverted far off course across the Caspian Sea.

An investigation is underway, with the pro-government Azerbaijani website Caliber citing unnamed officials as saying they believed a Russian missile fired from a Pantsir-S air defence system downed the plane.

Azerbaijan Airlines on Friday said that it was suspending flights to a total of seven Russian cities, taking into account flight safety risks, after earlier saying it had stopped flights to Grozny and to Makhachkala in Dagestan, which neighbours Chechnya.

Rasim Musabekov, an Azeri lawmaker, urged Russia to apologise for the incident.

“They have to accept this, punish those to blame, promise that such a thing will not happen again, express regrets and readiness to pay compensation,” Musabekov said.