Azernews.Az

BAKU – Azerbaijan on Wednesday threatened to shoot down civilian planes flying to its occupied Nagorno Karabakh region if the separatist Armenian authorities who control it reopen an airport there, AFP reported.

Baku's state aviation agency said it has told the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) that the region's airspace was closed and any flights would be unauthorized.

"According to the law on aviation, it is even possible to physically destroy airplanes which are heading there," said Arif Mammadov, the director of Azerbaijan's Civil Aviation Administration, in comments to local media.

"We asked the ICAO to notify the opposing side in order to prevent incidents," he said.

The separatist Karabakh authorities have been rebuilding the airport near their capital Stepanakert and plan to restart commercial flights to Yerevan in May.

The airport has been closed since the outbreak of the Karabakh war in the early 1990s, which saw ethnic Armenian forces backed by Yerevan seize control over the region from Baku amid fighting that left an estimated 30,000 dead.

The separatists have warned Azerbaijan not to disrupt the planned commercial flights, amid increasing tensions and exchanges of gunfire across the ceasefire line which has divided the two sides since the end of the war.

Azerbaijan has threatened to use force to win back Karabakh if peace talks do not yield satisfactory results, while Armenia has warned of large-scale retaliation if Baku launches any military action.