MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The UK government’s decision to suspend British flights to and from the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh was motivated by opposition to Russia's anti-terrorist airstrikes in Syria, Head of Russia’s Council of Federation Committee on Foreign Affairs Konstantin Kosachev said Thursday.
"There is a geopolitical opposition to Russian activities in Syria. As sacrilegious as it may sound, there are enough of those who would prefer to attribute the catastrophe, ahead of time, without any good reason, to a jihadist response to Russia," Kosachev told journalists.
Kosachev stressed that Russia would suspend flights if it was proved that terrorists were behind the plane crash.
He added that it was too early to rule out any version of the cause of the Airbus A321 crash, and therefore the UK move was designed in a way to put "psychological pressure" on Russia.
On October 31, the Russian Airbus A321 en route from the Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg crashed in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. All 224 people on board the plane were killed, which has made the crash the biggest tragedy in Russian and Soviet civil aviation history.
Since September 30, Russia has been carrying out precision airstrikes on ISIL positions in Syria at the request of President Bashar Assad's.
