Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News

Turkey refuses overflight by Armenian plane: airline chief
by The Daily News, Feb 3 2001
Posted: Tuesday, February 06, 2001 01:18 am CST

YEREVAN, Feb 3 (AFP) - Turkey has for the first time refused to let an Armenian passenger plane overfly its territory, the head of the Armenian airline involved said here Saturday.

Armenian Airlines chief Stanislav Mkrtoumian told AFP the Turkish authorities had given no explanation for the refusal.

The grounded plane, which was refused overflying rights on Friday, had been due to make a flight from the Armenian capital to Athens, he said.

"The Turkish side gave no explanation," he added.

Although the Turks had promised to let the plane leave on Saturday afternoon, it had remained on the tarmac at Yerevan, he said.

The plane was due late Saturday to take off for Athens after officials drew up a revised flight-path over the Black Sea, thus bypassing Turkish air space, a spokesman for the Armenian civil aviation authority told AFP.

Tension between Armenia and Turkey has risen since January 18, when the lower house of the French parliament passed a bill recognizing as "genocide" the mass killings of ethnic Armenians in Turkey during World War II.

French President Jacques Chirac officially passed the bill into law last Tuesday, sparking a wave of economic reprisals from Ankara, including the cancelling of lucrative contracts.

This week, Armenian President Robert Kocharian said he was "satisfied" by the French vote, which has infuriated Turkey.

The Armenian foreign ministry said it had had received no information from Ankara regarding the overflying problem. Turkey and Armenia do not have diplomatic relations.

Armenians say that around 1.5 million of their countrymen died in massacres between 1915 and 1917 in what was then the Ottoman Empire.

Turkey maintains that the true figure is less than half a million, and says that many Turks were also killed by Armenians.

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