ArmInfo.The head of the State Aviation Committee of Armenia Tatevik Revazyan stated that the department's employees are constantly discussing the issue related to the operation of the airport in Stepanakert.
On February 13, Revazyan said from the rostrum of the parliament that the CAC was trying to find a solution that would make it possible to operate the airport. "But the fact is that Azerbaijan decided to close the airspace of Artsakh at the international level. And we, as the Civil Aviation Committee, do not have the right to give permission for flights to Artsakh. This problem is exclusively political, and we cannot solve it on our own. Question should be resolved at the political level, "Revazyan emphasized.
Note that the airport in Stepanakert until the end of the 1980s served regular passenger flights Yerevan - Stepanakert. With the beginning of the Karabakh conflict and the blockade of the Armenian SSR and NKAO established by the authorities of the Azerbaijan SSR, the airport became the only means of communication between the blocked region and the outside world.
In the late 2000s, the NKR government set the task to start operating the Stepanakert airport using small aircraft and on October 28, 2008 at the next meeting approved the draft law "On Aviation" .. The NKR believes that this has not only vital, but also political importance and will contribute to strengthening statehood and improving the welfare of the population.
In turn, Azerbaijan reacted very painfully to this issue. According to the Azerbaijani media, on March 16, 2011, the director of the State Civil Aviation Administration of Azerbaijan Arif Mammadov said: "Azerbaijan can destroy planes that are going to land at the airport being built by the Armenian side in the occupied Azerbaijani city of Khankendi (Stepanakert) in Nagorno-Karabakh. According to the law" On aviation, "it is even possible to physically destroy planes heading there."
US Ambassadors to Azerbaijan and Armenia - Matthew Bryza and Marie Jovanovic -called this statement inadmissible. Matthew Bryza also stated that all safety issues should be resolved by Azerbaijan and Armenia before the opening of the airport.
NKR aviation authorities called the threats of Azerbaijan uncivilized .. The third president of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, in response to the threats, said that he would be the first passenger of the Yerevan- Stepanakert flight. A number of deputies and public organizations of Azerbaijan called for bringing down the plane in which Sargsyan will fly. On April 2, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Elkhan Polukhov said: "Azerbaijan has never used and will not use force against civilian targets." To date, the airport does not work.
