Arnold Chan, Member of Parliament for Scarborough-Agincourt federal electoral district in Toronto, Canada, issued a statement on the recent downing of an Armenian helicopter by Azerbaijan.

“I wish to express my serious concern about the recent downing of an Armenian helicopter by Azerbaijani forces.

“On behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada, I want to express my condolences to the family and friends of the three Armenian crew members who have lost their lives as a result.

“I am deeply concerned that this incident will escalate tensions between these two countries. While we condemn the shooting of the unarmed helicopter, we urge for calm and support the peace process within the format of the Minsk Group of the OSCE.

“A negotiated settlement to this long standing conflict is the best pathway to lasting peace and security,” the statement reads.

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.