VELIKY NOVGOROD: Russia and Egypt on Thursday dismissed suggestions by Britain and the United States that a bomb was likely to have brought down a Metrojet flight packed with Russian vacationers leaving an Egyptian resort, saying the claim was premature.

A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Peskov, insisted that aviation investigators were working on all possible theories as to why the Airbus A321-200 carrying 224 people crashed on Saturday in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, killing everyone on board. He said naming just one possibility was mere speculation.

“One cannot rule out a single theory, but at this point there are no reasons to voice just one theory as reliable — only investigators can do that,” Peskov told reporters in Moscow.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond spoke on Wednesday of a “significant possibility” the crash was caused by a bomb and Britain immediately suspended all flights to and from Sharm el-Sheikh, the Red Sea resort where the flight originated. The move stranded hundreds of tourists in Egypt.

In London on Thursday, British Prime Minister David Cameron said the crash was “more likely than not” caused by a bomb. He said he had “every sympathy” with the Egyptians, who rely so on heavily on tourism, but that he had to “put the safety of British people first.”

He says British officials are not yet certain the plane was bombed, but it’s a “strong possibility.”

Cameron said he would call Putin later in the day to discuss the crash.

Published in Dawn, November 6th, 2015

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