YEREVAN. – The armed forces of Nagorno-Karabakh conducted an operation to remove the remains of the helicopter's crew and handed over them to the families, UK Ambassador Katherine Leach said.

She believes presently this may be a certain measure to establish peace.

During her lecture at the American University of Armenia, Ambassador Leach noted UK's support to international community and the OSCE Minsk Group that raised voices in connection with the incident.

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.