YEREVAN. – The operation on removal of the bodies of pilots from the downed Karabakh helicopter was a brilliant operation, political analyst Ara Papyan said.

“I do not forecast a large-scale war since Azerbaijan has no task of military extermination of Armenia and is pursuing policy of exhaustion of our country,” Papyan added.

He stressed that different ethnic minorities are suppressed in Azerbaijan, and it is necessary to work with ethnic and religious minorities.

“Armenia has a regional mission of supporting suppressed ethnic minorities,” he added.

The Azerbaijani armed forces violated the ceasefire and shot down a Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) Air Force helicopter on November 12. The chopper was downed during a training flight, and it crashed very close to the Karabakh-Azerbaijan Line of Contact. As a result, three pilots were killed: the commander of the helicopter, Major Sergey Sahakyan, as well as Senior Lieutenant Sargis Nazaryan and Lieutenant Azat Sahakyan.

The adversary, on the other hand, was firing intensive shots toward the crash site, thus, not allowing access to the area.

But the remains of these three military servicemen plus some necessary parts of the chopper were retrieved from the helicopter’s crash site through a special operation by the NKR armed forces. As a result, the Azerbaijanis suffered serious casualties, whereas the Armenian side sustained none.