Putin suspended all flights to Egypt on Friday amid security concerns after the October 31 crash of a Russian airliner that killed all 224 people onboard.
Advertisement
Roughly three million Russian tourists came to Egypt in 2014, almost a third of all visitors, with most heading to the resorts in the southern Sinai Peninsula or its opposite mainland coast, far off from an insurgency being fought by Islamic militants against the army further north.
“There is a strong probability that this is an attack”, Yaalon said.
The head of Airbus said no technical fault has yet been detected that might explain the plane crash. He said his opinion was based on “what we hear and understand”. President Vladimir Putin ordered Friday the suspension of all flights to Egypt.
Russia’s deputy prime minister says it will take about two weeks to bring all the stranded Russian tourists back home from Egypt.
Hotel workers in Egypt are being questioned by investigators over the Russian passenger plane that crashed in Egypt’s Sinai desert.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev admitted Monday the possibility that a terrorist act was the cause of the destruction over the Sinai, Egypt, of the Russian passenger aircraft.
Security concerns over Egyptian procedures have also gained attention in recent days.
The possibility that Islamic State operatives were able to infiltrate Sharm al-Sheikh Airport and plant a bomb aboard a commercial aircraft has heightened worries among U.S. officials about the danger posed by the group’s Sinai branch.
Dutch carrier KLM announced that it would begin using “its own personnel to carry out security screening” of checked-in luggage on flights out of Cairo airport. The ICAO is a United Nations specialized agency that aims to support a safe and secure civil aviation sector.
The Emergency Situations Ministry said in a statement that the authorities will also be bringing over 130 tons of the tourists’ luggage on four cargo planes on Monday.
Ivanov said Egypt needs to revise its security regime not only in Sharm el-Sheikh, but also in airports in Cairo and another Red Sea resort of Hurghada.
Advertisement
The Islamic State’s local affiliate, which calls itself the Sinai Province of Islamic State, claimed responsibility for the crash, and indicated it was in retaliation for Russia’s military intervention in the Syrian civil war.
