Saudi Arabia extends condolences to Azerbaijan following plane crash in Kazakhstan

By Mohammad Sio

ISTANBUL (AA) - Saudi Arabia extended condolences to Azerbaijan on Wednesday following the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane in the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan.

The Saudi Foreign Ministry issued a statement expressing the Kingdom's “sincere condolences and sympathies to the families of the deceased and to the government and people of the Republic of Azerbaijan.”

The statement also conveyed wishes for a speedy recovery to those injured in the crash.

Earlier in the day, an Azerbaijan Airlines flight with 67 people on board, traveling from Azerbaijan’s capital Baku to the city of Grozny in Russia’s Chechnya, crashed near Aktau on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea.

Kenan Zeynalov, the spokesman of Azerbaijan's Prosecutor General’s Office, said during a press conference in Baku that 32 people on board survived the crash.