Pakistan explains refusal to allow Bangladesh to use its airspace

In a statement on Tuesday, the Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka said that applications for diplomatic flights and use of airspace are reviewed according to established rules and civil aviation protocols. Due to coordination among the relevant authorities, flight schedules may sometimes change.

The High Commission further said that Pakistan attaches great importance to its relations with Bangladesh. Therefore, it has called for viewing the incident in its proper technical context.

Earlier, Bangladesh had said that a cargo flight carrying uranium from Russia for the second unit of Rooppur was scheduled to arrive in the country on September 24. However, as permission to use Pakistan's airspace was not obtained, the flight could not arrive at the scheduled time.

Minister of Science and Technology Fakir Mahbub Anam had said that Russia has given a new schedule for sending the fuel in the first week of October.

Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant is being built in Ishwardi, Pabna, with technical assistance from Russia's state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom. The project's two VVER-1200 units have a total generation capacity of 2,400 megawatts.