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Russian experts fly to Cairo Thursday for final airport security checks

The experts will inspect airport’s Terminal 2

CAIRO, January 31. /TASS/. A team of Russian experts will arrive in Cairo on Thursday, February 2, for security checks at the Cairo International Airport, informed sources from the Egyptian capital told Tass on Tuesday.

They said the experts will inspect airport’s Terminal 2, but declined to say how long they will stay in Cairo. The airport administration earlier pledged to finish work to adjust the biometric and screening equipment by the end of January. At the moment, work is in progress on personnel fingerprint database.

The upcoming inspection is expected to be the final one before the sides discuss the timeframe for restart of air communication between the two countries suspended more than a year ago following the crash of a Russian airliner in Egypt in a terrorist attack.

Moscow and Cairo are yet to sign an agreement on air safety after which the issue of reopening flights will be discussed in practical terms. In the first decade of February, the Egyptian minister of aviation is expected in Moscow, and experts believe a bilateral document may be signed during his visit.

Russia suspended air service with Egypt after a Russian passenger plane crashed over Sinai last October. The A321 plane belonging to Russia’s air company Kogalymavia was en route from Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt to St. Petersburg in Russia (flight KGL 9268) when it crashed over the Sinai Peninsula early on October 31 last year.

All the 224 people onboard, including 217 passengers and the seven-member crew, died. The passengers, most of whom were Russians, also included four Ukrainians and one citizen of Belarus.

Russian Federal Security Service said the plane crashed as a result of a terrorist attack. Moscow demanded that Egypt steps up security measures at its airports.