Serbian ministry: Plane that crashed in Greece was not transporting weapons to Ukraine

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The Ministry of Defense issued another statement today regarding the crash of a plane in Greece, which was transporting products manufactured by the Serbian defense industry, and the statement stresses that Serbia respects all international regulations regarding the trade and export of weapons and military equipment and will continue to produce and sell the products of its defense industry to everyone allowed to buy them.

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It is noted that the plane that crashed in Greece was transporting products made by the Serbian industry to the authorized end user - the Ministry of Defense of Bangladesh.

"The owner of the cargo was the private company Valir, while the plane, owned by a private Ukrainian company, contained about 11.5 tons of training and illuminating mortar shells. The Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Serbia has already informed the public about this, and the air carrier and the Ministry of Defense of Bangladesh have already stated the same, which specified that the shells were intended to be used by their army and border guards. That is the only truth and these facts have been confirmed by all parties," underlined the Ministry of Defense.

They also pointed out that the organization of the flight itself was not under the jurisdiction of Serbia, and noted that Serbia does not have the power to issue overflight permits, because that is a sovereign decision of each country, to which the carrier applies.

"In this case, our country respected international law and fulfilled all international obligations, and we, with a clear conscience, support the Greek authorities in conducting a detailed investigation," the ministry stressed.

The ministry underlined that Serbia not only did not use this plane to transport weapons to Ukraine, but that since software started to be used to keep systematic records in 2016 for each permit to transfer weapons and military equipment from Serbia, none has been issued to transport any type of weapons or military equipment from Serbia to Ukraine.

(Telegraf.rs)