The NSS said the incident in which windows and the roof of the “Syunik” airport were damaged occurred at 04:24 a.m., less than 24 hours after Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian visited the facility, arriving from Yerevan on board a small passenger aircraft that is due to start regular flights to the Armenian town next week.
According to the report, the unknown person who approached the territory of the airport and fired three shots then left.
“We call on the authorities of Azerbaijan to conduct a proper investigation of the incident and to take measures to exclude the repetition of such incidents,” the NSS said in a statement.
“The Border Guard troops of the Republic of Armenia NSS are ready for a joint investigation and/or a transfer of relevant videos to the Azerbaijani side,” it added.
Azerbaijan did not comment on the incident immediately.
The Kapan airport is expected to host the first demonstration passenger flight by a commuter aircraft from Yerevan on August 19, which is marked annually as the town’s day.
Regular commercial flights between the Armenian capital and the town in Armenia’s strategic Syunik province bordering on Iran and sandwiched between Azerbaijan and its western exclave of Nakhichevan are expected to start next week.
On his trip to Kapan on Thursday afternoon the Armenian prime minister was accompanied by Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure Gnel Sanosian.
Syunik Governor Robert Ghukasian, Kapan Mayor Gevorg Parsian and other officials reportedly welcomed the prime minister at Kapan’s recently renovated airport.
A video posted by the Prime Minister’s Office showed Pashinian touring the airport and inspecting its conditions.
The first test flight from Yerevan to Kapan was operated in late April to become the first such flight since the 1990s, barring one private flight made in 2017.
The Civil Aviation Committee said then that an Armenia-registered L-410 passenger plane (made in the Czech Republic) designed for 19 passengers successfully landed at Kapan’s Syunik Airport after a 48-minute flight from Yerevan’s International Zvartnots Airport. It described that flight as a “truly historic” event.
Despite concerns raised in Armenia by the incident at the Kapan airport, the Civil Aviation Committee said that the Yerevan-Kapan-Yerevan flight will take place on Saturday as scheduled. It said that Azerbaijan had been notified about the planned flight in accordance with regulations concerning flights operated near borders between two states.
Kapan is situated some 190 kilometers to the southeast of capital Yerevan not far from the border with Azerbaijan. The runway of its airport stretches along the border and at one point is situated less than a hundred meters from it.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh for decades. Tensions along their restive border have persisted despite a Russia-brokered ceasefire that stopped a deadly six-week Armenian-Azerbaijani war in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020.