Azernews.Az

BAKU – Azerbaijan has issued a second note to Afghanistan’s government asking for its assistance in the delivery of the dead bodies of the crew members of the Azerbaijani cargo plane that recently crashed in the country.

"Azerbaijan has again sent a note to the Afghan Foreign Ministry with a request for delivery of the dead bodies to Kabul for their further transfer to the Azerbaijani commission established to determine causes for the plane crash," Azerbaijani ambassador to Pakistan and Afghanistan Dashgin Shikarov told the Baku-based Trend news agency Tuesday.

Earlier, on Sunday, Azerbaijan issued a similar note to the Afghan authorities.

All nine crew members on board were killed after the plane carrying cargo to the international coalition forces in Afghanistan crashed north of Kabul early last Wednesday. The Taliban reportedly claimed responsibility for the incident.

Members of the commission investigating the crash, who are in Kabul, have still not reached the crash site due to the anti-terror operations ongoing there.

"Azerbaijan makes every effort to take the dead bodies of the crew members from the crash site. But unfortunately, these efforts have been unsuccessful so far. The Taliban forces are shelling the area during attempts to get to the site.

"Though the coalition forces have allocated about 300 soldiers to accompany the members of the Azerbaijani commission, which includes representatives of Azerbaijan’s Civil Aviation Administration, and specialists of [privately owned] Silk Way Airlines, which owned the plane, the commission still has not gained access to the crash site because of anti-terrorist operations being carried out there," he said.

Chingiz Garibli, a representative of Azerbaijan’s embassy in Pakistan, has told Radio Liberty that the commission members are developing a plan jointly with the Afghan authorities and representatives of the coalition forces to retrieve the crew members’ bodies.

Ilham Amirov, the Azerbaijani co-chair of the commission, said earlier that the plane could have been shot down by the Taliban forces. "Such a possibility is very high," he said.

The cargo plane with five citizens of Azerbaijan and four Uzbek nationals on board was carrying 18 tons of cargo from the Azerbaijani capital Baku to the city of Bagram. The city is located around 45 km north of the Afghan capital and is home to the largest US air base in the country.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid earlier told the press that the Taliban had allegedly shot down the Azerbaijani aircraft because it was carrying weapons to US servicemen based in Afghanistan. But executive officials in the Parwan province where the plane crashed dismissed the allegations, saying the plane collided with the mountains and then caught fire.

The Associated Press reported earlier that the plane had broken into ten to twenty fragments and burnt down. The police found body parts of the crash victims on-site, but the burnt remains could not be identified.

The IL-76 with loading capacity of 40 tons, manufactured in Russia in 2005, last underwent an inspection in June this year.