MOSCOW, May 24. /TASS/. The reaction that members of the European Parliament displayed over the emergency landing of a Ryanair flight in the Belarusian capital of Minsk exposed the West’s double standards, Russian State Duma (the lower house of parliament) Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Leonid Slutsky told reporters on Monday.

"The initiative by members of the European Parliament that the Committee on Foreign Affairs hold an emergency debate on the incident surrounding the emergency landing of the Ryanair flight in Minsk is the most barefaced manifestation of double standards," he pointed out.

The Russian lawmaker noted that no one had shown such a reaction when Bolivian President Evo Morales’ plane was forced to land and was searched in July 2013. "Back then, it was a joint decision by the EU authorities. They were looking for Edward Snowden, who had told the world the truth about Washington’s crimes. No one called for parliamentary debates or demanded that Austria’s airspace be closed. "Instead of making hasty conclusions, our partners should direct their anger at those who opened Pandora’s box and eradicated entire countries from the face of the Earth for the sake of establishing a unilateral world order," Slutsky emphasized.

Members of the European People's Party Group, the largest in the European parliament, earlier called on EU countries to suspend flights to and from Belarus in the wake of the Ryanair flight incident.

A Vilnius-bound Ryanair flight that took off from Athens was forced to make an emergency landing at Minsk International Airport on Sunday after a reported bomb threat, which came up empty. Minsk specified that Roman Protasevich, wanted in Belarus as a co-founder of the Nexta Telegram channel deemed extremist, had been among the flight’s passengers. He was detained by law enforcement officers, media reports said. The flight departed to Vilnius on the same day.