Azerbaijan downs 2 Armenian Su-25 attack aircraft

Azerbaijan on Thursday downed two Armenian Armed Forces Su-25 attack aircraft that attempted to conduct airstrikes on positions of the Azerbaijan army in the Qubadli region, Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry said.

"On October 29, at about 13:18 and 13:20, two Su-25 attack aircraft of the Armenian armed forces that attempted to inflict airstrikes on the positions of the Azerbaijan Army in the Qubadli direction of the front were shot down by Azerbaijan Air Defense Units," the ministry said in a Twitter statement.

The Azerbaijani presidency also said Thursday that "under the initiative of (President) Ilham Aliyev, the Azerbaijani side handed to Armenia the bodies of 30 troops" killed in the fighting.

"Armenia has failed to show good will in that matter," but thanks to Russian mediation has "agreed to open a humanitarian corridor" for the evacuation of Azerbaijani soldiers' bodies from battlefields," Aliyev's aide Hikmet Hajiyev told journalists.

Armenian Defense Ministry Spokesperson Shushan Stepanian confirmed the handover mediated by Russia and the Red Cross and added that the Armenian side was ready to return bodies of slain Azerbaijani soldiers.

Since the clashes over the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region erupted on Sept. 27, Armenia has repeatedly attacked Azerbaijani civilians and forces, even violating three humanitarian cease-fires since Oct. 10.

At least 90 civilians have been killed and 392 injured in Armenia’s attacks on Azerbaijani civilian settlements since Sept. 27, the Prosecutor General's Office of Azerbaijan reported Thursday. Around 2,406 houses, 92 apartment buildings and 423 public buildings were demolished or became unusable.

Relations between the two former Soviet republics have been tense since 1991 when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, an internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.