SOFIA, Bulgaria \u2014 Bulgaria said Wednesday it could allow Syria-bound Russian planes to cross its airspace if Moscow permits it to inspect the cargo, following concerns they could be carrying weapons for the Syrian regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“If our Russian colleagues agree for their flights to be inspected at a Bulgarian airport, we will grant them a permit,” Bulgarian Foreign Minister Daniel Mitov told journalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His remarks came a day after NATO and EU member Bulgaria confirmed it had <\/span>refused permission to an unspecified number of Russian aircraft to cross its airspace last week, angering Moscow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was no immediate reaction from Russia to Mitov’s remarks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n Moscow had <\/span>on Tuesday demanded answers from Bulgaria and Athens, suggesting both countries had denied permission for Russian planes to use its airspace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But although Greece confirmed receiving a request from Washington to bar two Russian planes from crossing its airspace between Sept. 1 and 24, it said Moscow had<\/span> later decided to use an alternative route.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Washington has expressed concern following reports suggesting Moscow may be boosting military support to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and had sent a military advance team to the war-torn country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Wednesday, Athens denied any rift with Moscow over the matter with the foreign ministry saying that “no displeasure or any other negative comment has been expressed from anyone.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mitov said the European Council had imposed restrictions on the supply of certain goods and services to Syria which every EU member state was “obliged to implement.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We had enough information to give us reasons to believe that there is a discrepancy between the declared purpose of the flights and the real delivery, meaning that we would not issue a permit,” he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Using Bulgarian and Greek airspace allows Russian planes to bypass Turkey and Iran on their way to Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2012, Turkish warplanes forced a Damascus-bound passenger plane from Moscow to land and searched it on suspicion it was carrying equipment that breached civil aviation rules.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bulgaria said Wednesday it could allow Syria-bound Russian planes to cross its airspace if Moscow permits it to inspect the cargo, following concerns they could be carrying weapons for the Syrian regime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":114007,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":46,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[46,11,33],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2793],"class_list":["post-52958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-global","category-home"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"XHH42LS6AFHTJKNAVHQKVUEPAE","arc_canonical_url":"\/global\/europe\/2015\/09\/10\/bulgaria-offers-to-check-syria-bound-russian-aircraft\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n