The incidents of downing of the Armenian helicopter on the line of contact between the Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijani troops and the Russian plane over Syria have the same modus operandi, Vice Speaker of the Armenian Parliament Eduard Sharmazanov has told ArmInfo. To note, Sharmazanov is in St. Petersburg on a working visit.
"This is obvious and the international community should draw relevant conclusions. If the downing of the Armenian helicopter had received proper response from the international community, it would probably have been possible to avoid recurrence of similar cases. We should all join efforts to take preventive measures and eradicate such phenomena," says Sharmazanov. He notes that he is going to raise the same issue during his meetings and speeches on the sidelines of the 8th plenary sitting of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly, as well as during the bilateral meeting with Russian State Duma Speaker Sergey Naryshkin.
He stresses that Ankara fails to draw conclusions from the developments and aggravates the situation even more. "In particular, the matter concerns Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's statement that Ankara will keep exerting efforts towards "returning Nagorno-Karabakh" to Azerbaijan. In the current situation, Ankara should mind its own business. It is noteworthy that Davutoglu also speaks of Turkey's striving to normalize its relations with Armenia. This statement can be qualified only as demagogy," says Sharmazanov.
To recall, the Azerbaijani armed forces downed an Armenian Mi-24 helicopter while it was conducting a training flight near the Line on Contact on 12 November 2014. Three officers of the NKR Armed Forces - Sergey Sahakyan, Sargis Nazaryan and Azat Sahakyan - were on board. The Azeri officer that shot the helicopter down was awarded a medal.