NEW YORK (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th September, 2022) Canada did not issue visas to the Belarusian delegation to participate in the upcoming meeting of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) on the incident with the Ryanair aircraft, Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei said in an interview with Sputnik, adding that this was done purposefully and indicates that the Canadian authorities are afraid of the refutation of the information published in the report on the incident.
On May 23, 2021, Belarus diverted the Ryanair plane flying from Athens to Vilnius to Minsk over a bomb threat that turned out to be false. Belarusian opposition activist Roman Pratasevich and his girlfriend were arrested when the plane landed. On July 20, ICAO concluded in its latest updates to the report on the Ryanair flight incident that the bomb threat against the aircraft was "deliberately false" and was communicated to the crew upon instructions of seniors Belarus officials.
"Literally in a few days, the ICAO meeting should be held at which this report will be considered. We were ready to send our delegation there, a delegation of specialists who would like, maybe not to dispute, but to present their arguments. And maybe they would be accepted by the leadership of this organization," Makei said.
"However, unfortunately, the Canadian authorities did not issue visas to our delegation. I am convinced that all this was purposefully planned. This suggests that they are simply afraid to hear specific arguments that refute the speculations set forth in this report," Makei added.
Makei called this step politicization of the situation around the report. In his opinion, the refusal to let the Belarusian experts testify to "clearly fabricated things, fabricated documents, and a fabricated report."
Makei noted that the experts who previously came to Belarus did not listen to Minsk's arguments and did not collect all the information that was needed. In addition, according to him, foreign experts did not give Minsk the opportunity to get acquainted with the information that it requested, "essentially keeping silent about some important things that should have been reflected in this report."
