Turkey Blocks Dodik's Flight to Armenia

Burgas airport in Bulgaria confirmed to Balkan Insight that the plane carrying the Bosnian Serb President Milorad Dodik to Armenia was forced to turn back to Bosnia on Wednesday, after Turkey denied permission for it to cross its air space.
 
A statement from Dodik's office said the Turkish authorities had denied him right of passage although they previously gave the green light to the flight plan.
 
Upon his return to Banja Luka, Dodik told media that he waited in his plane at Burgas airport for more than four hours, and then decided to return in the afternoon hours as night time approached.

Dodik added that after returning to Banja Luka, he learned that Turkey had granted him permission to overfly the country - but said it was given too late. "Had we not returned, we probably would not have got [Turkey's] permission," he commented.
 
On the invitation of Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, the President of Republika Srpska, the mainly Serbian entity in Bosnia, left Banja Luka on Wednesday for Yerevan.

He had been due to participate in events marking the mass slaughter of Armenians in what was then the Ottoman Empire.
 
Armenians call the systematic extermination of their community an act of genocide, which Turkey hotly disputes.
 
The total number of people killed has been estimated at between one and 1.5 million. The official start date of this massacre is held to be 24 April 1915, which is when the Ottoman authorities rounded up and arrested some 250 Armenian leaders in Constantinople, today's Istanbul.   
 
A Bosnian Serb official, speaking anonymously, told Balkan Insight that the incident was obviously linked to Turkey's refusal to acknowledge what happened to the Armenians.
 
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