"Croatia, unfortunately, has gone through the same situation that Azerbaijan is going through now - we had a lot of mined territories. We have been fighting this problem for over 25 years and there are still some areas in Croatia that need to be cleared," Branko Zebic, ambassador of Croatia to Azerbaijan, told Report's question on the role of Croatian companies in demining work in the liberated Azerbaijani territories.
"We have completed most of this task successfully, and we have a lot of experience in demining work. There are Croatian companies with a lot of experience in this area, from the production of demining machines to those that are directly engaged in physical demining. All this is well known to Azerbaijan, your demining agency ANAMA has been cooperating with the Croatian side for some time. One of them is DOK-ING, which manufactures demining machines. Its technique works in Karabakh, and has proven itself very well.
"Regarding the physical demining by foreign companies, as far as I know, this issue is still under consideration. At present, Azerbaijan is mainly engaged in demining on its own, but I think that it is planned to attract foreign companies to carry out this large-scale one. I think that the Croatian company Piper is one of those companies that can be included in the demining work in Azerbaijan.
"There is also a DOK-ING division, which is not associated with machines, it is engaged in manual demining, as well as the use of trained dogs for this purpose. It seems that Azerbaijan has concluded a contract with them, and 10-12 sapper dogs will be delivered to Azerbaijan this year," he added.