"The flight permits on the territory of Kyrgyzstan will be issued for Kazakhstani helicopters which will search our climbers, they will also deliver a group of professional climbers from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia who are ready to help in search," said Aibek Smadyarov, official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Well-known climber Maksut Zhumayev heads the search group.
"The diplomats have sent appropriate letters to the office to Thuraya operator asking to help to find the place from where the missing climbers sent a signal. The issue is under control of MIA and jointly with the emergency situations committee, MIA and the Ministry of Defense of Kazakhstan are working with Kyrgyzstan which has been assisting in the search since the first moment of application," said MFA.
In his words, a helicopter belonging to a tourist company was searching the climbers on August 18, but failed to find them.
"Unfortunately the search has not brought any results as several avalanches went down in this area. The problem is that the allowed flight altitude is 4500 m in the mountains and bad weather conditions. An emergency group has been created in the embassy of Kazakhstan which assists the search operation," he added.
Photo source: picture from an open source