NAGORNO-KARABAKH AVIATION OFFICIAL POSITIVE ON AIRPORT’S FUTURE

22:14 * 26.06.14

A senior aviation official of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic says he
expects the airport of capital Stepanakert to finally “open the sky”
and enable them to carry out international flight.

In an interview with Tert.am, Dmitry Adbashyan, Head of the
NKR Government’s Civil Aviation Department, shared his positive
expectations of the airport’s future, addressing also Azerbaijan’s
reaction to the recentflight of light tourist jets.

“The airport now operates light aircrafts which, in turn, are exploited
for tourism and agriculture, as well for educational purposes. We
have just started testing special devices that allow for agricultural
air injections. We collected the devices on our aircrafts a couple of
days ago to make experimental injections. We invited specialists from
the Ministry of Agriculture, and their estimations were rather high,”
he said

Asked what preparations the Department makes to serve passenger
flights, Adbashyan said no new initiatives have been undertaken since
the completion of the airport’s reconstruction in 2011. “The airport
is ready, but all we have now is what we had then, as no flights are
being carried out. I am not competent to comment on the reasons. I
can say only that we are technically ready.”

Adbashyan added that air companies from Germany, Russia and Italy
have expressed an interest in collaborating with the airport.

As for Azerbaijan’s somewhat hysteric reaction to the experimental
flight of small two-seat jets, he characterized it as an absolute
nonsense. “The obstacles they create are a complete nonsense; they just
seek to hamper our plans for some ungrounded reasons,” he explained.

Asked about possible security threats, the civic aviation official
said he doesn’t expect any aggression against aircrafts flying over
Karabakh. “We carry out domestic flights. They are not international
flights, so no other countries can accuse us of committing violations.

Those planes fly only over Karabakh. We can expect anything from the
Azerbaijanis, but I think they too have people who know a thing or
two about the international laws. And I believe they too understand
that there is a limit to everything. So I am sure they will not hit
those small aircrafts,” he answered.

Armenian News – Tert.am

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress