Egypt Air barred from flying into Russia

MOSCOW - Russian aviation authorities have banned Egypt Air from flying into the country, one of Moscow’s airports said Friday, with Russian flights between the two countries already suspended following the passenger jet crash in Sinai.
Moscow’s Domodedovo airport authorities told AFP that they had received a telegram from the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsia) banning Egypt Air’s flights to Russian territory from November 14. Russian aviation agency Rosaviatsia declined to comment when contacted by AFP. Egypt’s aviation minister said in a statement that Cairo had “not been officially informed about the cancellation of Egypt Air flights from Saturday to Moscow.” “High-level contacts are underway to clarify the situation,” minister Hossam Kamal said.
The announcement comes a week after Moscow halted Russian flights to and from Egypt as fears mounted that the Airbus jet crash in the Sinai peninsula could have been caused by a bomb. The plane, flown by Russian firm Kogalymavia, came down shortly after take off from resort Sharm el-Sheikh on October 31, killing all 224 people on board in Russia’s worst air disaster. The Egyptian-led probe into the disaster is still ongoing, but the UK and US have said a bomb could have downed the plane after an Islamic State-linked group claimed to have attacked the jet. Russia says its flights are halted until adequate safety measures have been put in place at Egyptian airports and has been flying out thousands of holidaymakers stranded in the country, though without any check-in luggage. A senior Kremlin official has said the flight ban to Egypt could last for months and Russia’s flagship carrier Aeroflot said it was not scheduling any flights to Egypt before March 27, 2016. President Vladimir Putin said in an interview released Friday that Russia has no “right” to ask Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad to leave power.
His remarks came just days before leaders from the world’s top 20 industrial powers gather in Turkey for a summit which begins Sunday and is likely to be dominated by the Syrian conflict.
But Putin, who hosted the embattled Syrian leader for surprise talks at the Kremlin last month, said Russia could not and would not ask him to quit.
“Let’s think just how legal and ethical our behaviour would be if we invited to Moscow the head of a friendly state and at the same time raised the issue of him leaving power? “Syria is a sovereign country, Bashar al-Assad is a president elected by the people.
So do we have the right to discuss with him these issues? Of course not,” Putin said in an interview with the Interfax and Anatolia news agencies.
World powers are to hold another round of talks on the Syrian conflict in Vienna this weekend. Putin reiterated that Russia’s bombing campaign in Syria would last for the duration of an offensive by the Syrian army. “So the duration of our military’s stay will be determined solely by the implementation of this goal,” Putin said.
The Russian president also said the “possible risks and consequences” of Russia’s Syrian intervention have been addressed multiple times. On September 30, Russia launched a bombing campaign in Syria, saying it needed to target Islamic State jihadists, but the West has accused Moscow of seeking to prop up Assad’s regime and hitting moderate rebels. A month later, an Airbus A321 charter plane carrying 224 people, mostly Russian tourists, crashed over Sinai, killing everyone on board. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in an apparent act of revenge for Russia’s Syria intervention.