BEIJING (Sputnik) — Answering the question, whether Cairo had invited Russian aviation security experts to visit Egypt in May, Sokolov said that "there was no invitation."
The source added that Russia had proposed permanent presence of safety specialists in the Egyptian airports accommodating the flights from Russia but this proposal had not not been approved. According to the source, Egyptian authorities consider that the presence of Russian specialists in the country's airports is the issue related to the Egyptian sovereignty and therefore is not possible.
"We have no the official information that Cairo was against the presence of the Russian specialists," Sokolov said.
The Airbus A321 crash over the Sinai desert killed 224 people aboard. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) classified the air disaster, the deadliest in Russian and Soviet history, as a terrorist attack.
Russia grounded flights to and from Egypt in November 2015.