Russia's Putin agrees to suspend flights to Egypt

PanARMENIAN.Net - Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to suspend all Russian flights to Egypt on Friday, November 6, after a recommendation by his chief of intelligence for a halt until the cause of last week's crash of a passenger jet in the Sinai Peninsula is determined, the Associated Press reports.

An official said pieces of wreckage from the plane had been brought to Moscow to test for possible traces of explosives.

The suspension came after several days of statements by British and American officials that it was possible a bomb on board had brought down the Russia carrier Metrojet's Airbus A321-200, which crashed 23 minutes after takeoff from the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, killing all 224 people on board. Russian and Egyptian officials had bristled at the statements, saying it was too soon to tell the cause.

The suspension, covering all of Egypt, is even more sweeping than that imposed by Britain, which had halted flights to Sharm el-Sheikh only.

"I think it will be reasonable to suspend all Russian flights to Egypt until we determine the real reasons of what happened," intelligence chief Alexander Bortnikov said in televised comments. "It concerns tourist flights most of all."

Egypt's Ministry of Civil Aviation said a Russian aircraft carrying 217 passengers and seven crew members crashed Saturday, October 31, in the restive Sinai peninsula.

On November 1, Russia's top aviation official said that the Russian jetliner that crashed shortly after takeoff from an Egyptian resort city broke up at high altitude, scattering fragments of wreckage over a wide area in the Sinai Peninsula.

According to U.S. and European security sources, evidence now suggests that a bomb planted by the Islamic State militant group is the likely cause ofthe crash.