The UK will introduce “emergency short-term measures” to improve security at Sharm el-Sheikh airport in an effort to bring around 20,000 stranded tourists home.
The UK Foreign Office barred flights to and from the Egyptian seaside resort on Wednesday after receiving intelligence that suggested a bomb may have caused a Russian passenger jet to crash in Sinai last weekend. All 224 people on board were killed.
The UK sent a team of experts to Egypt to examine airport security Wednesday and determined there was “more to be done”, said Downing Street.
Philip Hammond, the UK’s foreign secretary, told BBC Radio 4 that short-term measures would enable those still in Sharm el-Sheikh to return home, but that more sustainable systems would need to be introduced for flights to resume longer term.
Mr Hammond also told Sky News there was a “significant possibility” that Isis was responsible for downing the Metrojet flight.
Moscow has rejected the British government’s move as politically motivated and said Russian airlines would continue to operate flights to and from Sharm el-Sheikh.
Konstantin Kosachev, head of the foreign relations committee in the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament, said he believed there was “an element of psychological pressure” in the UK government’s decision.
“There is geopolitical opposition to Russia’s actions in Syria,” he said, adding that many would “prefer to ascribe this catastrophe, without the necessary proof, to a reaction from jihadists against Russia”.
So far only the UK and Irish authorities have halted flights to Sharm el-Sheikh, but Mr Hammond said he expected others to do the same soon.
“We would have wished [they] had waited until the end of the investigations and did not anticipate events,” said Alaa Youssef, a spokesman for Egypt’s president, on the UK decision to halt flights.
Sameh Shoukry, the Egyptian foreign minister, had said earlier it was “premature and unwarranted” to suggest a bomb caused the crash.
The British response to the plane crash is likely to overshadow the visit to the UK of Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who arrived on Wednesday.
An Egyptian source close to investigators looking into the crash told Reuters news agency that an explosion of some kind was believed to have brought down the plane though it was not yet clear if it was a bomb.
“There is an examination of the sand at the crash site to try and determine if it was a bomb,” he said.
On Wednesday, an audio tape purporting to be from Sinai Province, the Isis affiliate based in the northern part of the peninsula, had reiterated a claim that they brought down the Metrojet plane but said they would not reveal the method used.
“We brought it down by God’s help, and we are under no obligation to reveal the mechanism we used. So search the wreckage and analyse the black box”, said the speaker who threatened further actions against Russia because it has taken war to Isis “and its subjects” — a reference to the Russian military involvement in Syria.
He noted that the date of the crash coincided with the anniversary of the pledge of allegiance to Isis made by Sinai militants who had until then operated under the name Ansar Bayt al Maqdis, before they became Sinai Province to indicate they were part of a larger Islamic state.
Russia and Egypt had dismissed an earlier claim of responsibility from the group as experts said the militants did not posses missiles that could hit a plane flying at an altitude of more than 30,000 ft.
No comments:
Post a Comment