BERLIN, May 25. /TASS/. Heads of EU states and governments had a discussion to determine whether Russia was involved in the recent Ryanair flight incident in Minsk but the data they have did not make it possible to go deeper into the topic, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters on Tuesday following the EU summit.
"We of course touched upon the issue whether Russia was involved in this [incident]. We had no information and therefore there was no going deeper into the topic," she said. At the same time, Merkel underlined that the relations with Russia were discussed for a long time at the summit on Monday evening but without linking them to the flight incident. "This was the reason why we met yesterday," she said.
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. The plane landed safely and no bomb was found on board. Roman Protasevich, one of the co-founders of the Nexta Telegram channel, which was recognized as extremist in Belarus, was among the passengers and was detained after the airliner had landed in the Belarusian capital.