Azernews.Az

YEREVAN – Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has said he will be the first passenger on board a plane flying to an airport to be reopened in the Armenia-occupied Nagorno Karabakh region.

Sargsyan made the statement at a news conference with his Swiss counterpart Micheline Calmy-Rey in Yerevan, Armenia Today news website reported.

The separatist authorities have been rebuilding the airport near Khankandi, the center of the self-proclaimed republic run by ethnic Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh, and plan to restart commercial flights to Yerevan in May. Azerbaijan has said Armenia has no right to operate the airport and warned it could shoot down civilian planes flying to Nagorno Karabakh.

Commenting on Baku’s warning, Sargsyan claimed "the people of Karabakh have the right to use air transport", adding that Armenia would work to agree with international organizations its flights to the self-proclaimed republic.

The opening of the airport in Khankandi is due May 9. Baku's state aviation agency said earlier that it has told the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) that the occupied territories' airspace was a no-fly zone and any flights would be unauthorized.

Armenia has received a letter from ICAO stressing Azerbaijan’s concern over the planned operation of the airport in the occupied Azerbaijani territories. Nelly Cherchinyan, the spokesperson for Armenia’s civil aviation agency, confirmed this on Thursday in remarks to the local News.am news website, but she declined to disclose the content of the letter.

The airport has been closed since the outbreak of the Karabakh war in the early 1990s, which saw ethnic Armenian forces backed by Yerevan occupy the region amid fighting that left an estimated 30,000 people dead. Azerbaijan has repeatedly warned it could use force to regain its occupied territories if the ongoing peace talks remain fruitless.