Zakharova responded harshly to Poland's absurd demand
The National Prosecutor's Office of Poland demanded that Russia hand over the air traffic controllers who were working at Smolensk airport at the time of the crash of the Polish presidential Tu-154 plane in 2010.
Official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova stated this at a briefing in Moscow, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“We, the media, as well as the public, drew attention to the message of the press secretary of the National Prosecutor's Office of Poland that this office sent a petition to the court for the arrest of Russian air traffic controllers working at Smolensk airport on April 10, 2010 at the time of the crash of the Polish presidential plane.
For several years now, a conspiracy version of the tragic incident has been persistently promoted in Poland and a re-investigation of the plane crash is underway in order to blame the Russian side for the incident.
Although back in 2011, its causes were clearly defined in the report of the International Aviation Committee, with the conclusions of which the Polish side also agreed: in conditions of poor visibility, Polish pilots, contrary to the warnings of air traffic controllers, decided to land the plane at Smolensk airport, which became the cause of the disaster.
Years later, Warsaw, ignoring the facts, bringing the situation to the point of absurdity, is trying to earn “political points” from the tragedy and blame Russia for what happened,” she said.
Maria Zakharova emphasized that the unreasonable demands of Polish officials are nothing more than a political order, and Russia will under no circumstances extradite its citizens.
“One should hardly be surprised by yet another frankly absurd action by the Polish authorities. In the prevailing atmosphere of Russophobia in the country, government agencies often simply carry out “political orders.”
We call on our partners to stop this show and the persecution of Russian air traffic controllers. All attempts by Warsaw to achieve their extradition are in vain - according to our Constitution, Russia “has no right to extradite its citizens to anyone and under any circumstances.”
In general, for those who have strong nerves, I strongly advise you to read the transcript of conversations between pilots and dispatchers on the website of the Interstate Aviation Committee. It's going to be difficult, it's a hard thing to get into. But this needs to be done in order to understand what happened then,” added the representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
English version :: Read in English Zakharova responded harshly to Poland's absurd demand.