Russia continues negotiations with Egypt over flights

CAIRO – 18 May 2017: The Egyptian and Russian authorities have been in continuous negotiations over the resumption of air traffic between the two countries, Russian Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov said Thursday.

Sokolov refuted media claims that the negotiations between Moscow and Cairo over restoring mutual air links have been suspended since February this year, according to the Russian news agency Novosti.

"We are always in an open dialogue," Sokolov asserted.

All services by Russian airlines to Egypt have been suspended since November 2015 when the Metrojet Airbus A321, flying from Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt to St Petersburg came down in the middle of Sinai and killed all 224 people onboard. Most of the victims were Russian.

Following the accident, the Islamic State-affiliated Wilayat Sinai claimed, in a statement on Twitter, its responsibility for the crash of the Russian passenger plane. An immediate investigation was opened in cooperation between Egypt and different international agencies.

Egyptian authorities have committed to applying high safety measures at the country's airports and allowing Russian experts to access airport security zones; however, the latter step was objected to recently as being a violation of national sovereignty.