|
Most of Belarus's neighbours and many other European nations
have banned Belavia flights amid outrage over Sunday's forced
landing of a Ryanair jet en route to Lithuania from Greece and
the arrest of a dissident journalist on board.
The EU has proposed closing its airspace to state-owned Belavia
and stopping it from landing at EU airports.
In a post on his Facebook page on Saturday, Belavia director
Igor Tcherginets said such steps amounted to sanctions on the
carrier, which he described as innocent.
"It is evident that these governments planned not only to close
their countries for landing by our airplanes, but also, with an
especially fascist perversity, they are closing air corridors
one by one. They are mocking us," Tcherginets wrote.
He criticised European governments for imposing the restrictions
before the International Civil Aviation Organization had
investigated the incident.
"All this is happening before an investigation of the incident,
for which there may be some guilty parties, but Belavia is
definitely not among them," he added.
"They punish innocent Belavia, without even beginning an
investigation. It's despicable."
Belarus has said it was responding to a bomb threat when it
scrambled a MiG-29 fighter plane to escort the Ryanair jet down
and authorities in Minsk then arrested Roman Protasevich - a
blogger and critic of President Alexander Lukashenko - and his
girlfriend. European leaders have accused Belarus of
state-sponsored piracy.
(Reporting by Polina Ivanova; Editing by Helen Popper)
[© 2021 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2021 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
|
