Ryanair Plane Diversion: Joe Biden welcomes EU's call for sanctions on Belarus

US President Joe Biden on April 24 welcomed the European Union's call for sanctions against Belarus over the Ryanair flight's emergency landing and he has instructed his administration to curate options to hold Minsk responsible.

"I welcomed the news that the European Union has called for targeted economic sanctions and other measures and have asked my team to develop appropriate options to hold accountable those responsible, in close coordination with the European Union, other allies and partners, and international organisations," Biden said in a statement.

Biden said Belarus's forced diversion of a commercial Ryanair flight and subsequent removal and arrest of Raman Protasevich, a Belarusian journalist travelling abroad are a direct affront to international norms.

Ryanair Plane Incident

According to the Minsk National Airport's press service, a Ryanair flight en route from Athens to Vilnius (Lithuania) was forced to make an emergency landing in Minsk, Belarus. According to the Russian news agency, Roman Protasevich, the operator of a Telegram channel that Minsk has designated as extremist, was detained during the stopover at the airport. On May 23, the plane was cleared to take off from Minsk and arrived in Vilnius at 18:27 GMT.

It was carrying 171 passengers and was abruptly rerouted to the Belarusian capital shortly before it was about to exit the country’s airspace. However, then Belarusian air traffic controllers notified its pilots of “a potential security threat onboard” and directed the plane to divert to Minsk, the Ireland-based airline said in a statement. Belarusian officials said a MiG-29 fighter jet had been scrambled to escort the airliner to Minsk following a bomb scare, which they later conceded was “false”.

The German Chancellor Merkel stated Belarus’s explanations for the landing of the aircraft were “completely implausible”. While Anatoly Glaz, the Belarus foreign spokesman, said aviation authorities had acted “in complete accordance with established international rules”. Glaz accused the EU members of “rushing to make openly warlike statements”. On the other hand, Russia’s foreign ministry echoed the Belarusian attack on western countries’ responses to the incident, accusing them of hypocrisy.

The United States strongly condemned the diversion of the plane and the subsequent removal and arrest of Protasevich.

President Biden said, "This outrageous incident and the video Mr Protasevich appears to have made under duress are shameful assaults on both political dissent and the freedom of the press. The United States joins countries around the world in calling for his release, as well as for the release of the hundreds of political prisoners who are being unjustly detained by the Lukashenka regime."

This statement comes after leaders of the member states urged the European Council to adopt the necessary measures to ban overflight to EU airspace by Belarusian airlines, prevent access to EU airports of Belarusian flights, and called on all EU-based carriers to avoid an overflight of Belarus. 

Raynair airlines on Sunday stated its said flight FR4978 from Athens to Vilnius was notified by Belarusian authorities of a "potential security threat onboard" and was instructed to "divert to the nearest airport". Later, all of this turned out to be a farce.

(With ANI inputs)