Valdés told Prensa Latina at the Azerbaijani Embassy, he told his counterpart, Faig Guliev, about the messages of condolences published on the occasion of the accident by Cuba’s highest authorities.

The Azerbaijan Airlines plane, en route from Baku to Grozny, the capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, carrying 67 people on board, crashed on Wednesday near the Kazakh city of Aktau, on the shores of the Caspian Sea.

Acccording to reports, 52 officers and 11 means from the Ministry of Emergencies of Kazakhstan were present on the scene of the accident and found the aircraft on fire. Rescue teams proceeded to extinguish the flames. There were 25 survivors, 22 of whom were taken to the regional hospital.

Azerbaijan Airlines confirmed that its plane, an Embraer 190 operating flight J2-8243 from Baku to Grozny with 62 passengers and five crew members on board, crashed during an emergency landing about three kilometers from Aktau, after colliding with a flock of birds.

The Ministry of Transportation of Kazakhstan said that the plane was carrying 37 Azerbaijani nationals, 16 Russians, six Kazakhs and three Kyrgyz.

jg/ro/gfa