Sri Lanka denies detaining Russian plane after Moscow lodges diplomatic protest

After Russia lodged a diplomatic protest over the confiscation of its plane, Sri Lanka's main airport on Saturday denied the island nation's government was behind a decision to detain an Aeroflot aircraft.

Following a directive from a court in the capital Colombo, the Airbus A330 was seized at the Bandaranaike International Airport after it arrived from Moscow.

"Aeroflot is suspending commercial flights to Colombo (Sri Lanka) for the immediate period due to an unreliable situation in terms of the airline’s unobstructed flights to Sri Lanka. The sales of tickets for flights to Colombo have been temporarily shut down," the company said in a statement.

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Russian state news agency TASS reported that flight SU289 was about to return to the Russian capital with 191 passengers and 13 crew aboard.

Russian foreign ministry has summoned Sri Lanka's top envoy to receive a "resolute protest" over the detention.

Calling the dispute "purely of a commercial nature", Airport and Aviation Services, which runs Bandaranaike airport, said in a statement that it should not be subject to state involvement.

In response to a commercial dispute filing by Celestial Aviation Trading 10 Limited of Ireland, the plane was stopped on the orders of Colombo Commercial Court.

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While the aircraft's passengers have been booked into hotels, it is parked north of Colombo at Bandaranaike International Airport.

Following tough Western sanctions over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, Aeroflot suspended all international flights in March.

After it resumed operations to Colombo in the following month, Russia's civil aviation body had recommended airlines operating rental planes registered in foreign countries cease international flights to avoid their seizure.

(With inputs from agencies)

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