Azerbaijan is preparing a lawsuit against Russia in the case of the AZAL plane crash — Aliyev

Baku is preparing an international lawsuit against Russia in the case of the AZAL plane crash. This was announced by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at a meeting with participants of the III Shusha Global Media Forum, the Azerbaijani Report agency reports.

"Now we are preparing, and we have already informed the Russian side that we are preparing a dossier to be submitted to international courts on this matter. We understand that it may take time," Aliyev said.

According to him, Azerbaijan has not received any response from Russian officials regarding the plane crash near the Kazakh city of Aktau of a passenger Embraer 190 belonging to Azerbaijan Airlines CJSC, although seven months have passed.

"Everything is clear to us. We know what happened and we can prove it. And we know that Russian officials also know what happened… Our requests and demands are absolutely natural: to recognize this disaster as guilt, to punish those who shot down our plane, to pay compensation to the families of the victims, the injured and AZAL Airlines for the loss of the plane," Aliyev said.

He said that Baku will wait until the investigation is completed, but considers such behavior of the Russian side "counterproductive."

"And, unfortunately, the situation that is currently in limbo does not contribute to the development of bilateral relations between Russia and Azerbaijan," the Azerbaijani leader added.

As EADaily reported, the Azerbaijani diaspora of the Moscow region is likely to be dissolved and cease its activities due to the fact that there are no people willing to work there in the current conditions. This was reported by "Gazeta.Ru", referring to the statement of the head of this community, Elshan Ibragimov, who was previously deprived of Russian citizenship for threatening national security and deported from the Russian Federation.

Earlier, EADaily reported that the son of the head of the local Azerbaijani diaspora, Shahin Shikhlinski, was arrested in Yekaterinburg in the case of violence against a government official.