WARSAW (Reuters) -Poland warned Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday against travelling through its airspace for a summit in Hungary with U.S. President Donald Trump, saying it could be forced to execute an international arrest warrant if he did.
Bulgaria, however, would be willing to let Putin use its airspace if the summit is held in Hungary, Foreign Minister Georg Georgiev was quoted as saying.
Trump said last week he planned to meet Putin in Budapest as he tries to broker an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
ICC ARREST WARRANT AGAINST PUTIN
The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant against Putin, accusing him of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. Russia does not recognise the ICC’s jurisdiction and denies the allegations.
“I cannot guarantee that an independent Polish court won’t order the government to escort such an aircraft down to hand the suspect to the court in The Hague,” Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told Radio Rodzina.
The ICC warrant obligates the court’s member states to arrest Putin if he sets foot on their territory.
“And, therefore, if this summit is to take place, hopefully with the participation of the victim of the aggression, the aircraft will use a different route,” Sikorski said.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban maintains warmer relations with Russia than other European Union member states. Budapest has said it would ensure Putin can enter Hungary for the summit and return home afterwards.
To avoid travelling over Ukraine, Russia’s delegation would need to fly through at least one EU country’s airspace. All EU states are members of the ICC but Hungary is in the process of leaving.
Georgiev indicated Bulgaria would be ready to let Putin use its airspace if it might help secure peace in Ukraine.
“If the condition for this is to have a meeting, it is most logical for such a meeting to be mediated in every possible way,” Bulgarian News Agency BTA quoted Georgiev as saying.
Bulgaria’s foreign ministry said it had not yet received any air travel request from Russia.
(Reporting by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk; Additional reporting by Georgi Slavov in Sofia; Editing by Joe Bavier and Timothy Heritage)
