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Defence ministry: Israeli jets have required authorisation to fly over Romania
Two Israeli Gulfstream fighter jets that flew over Romania on Wednesday, March 17 had all the required authorisations in line with the national legislation, the National Defence Ministry said in a release to Agerpres on Friday.
The jets carried out a navigation training flight by observing the flight route and the times for the entry and exit from the Romanian air space. Flying over the Romanian air space by state planes belonging to other countries is being currently carried out in line with the legal provisions on the approval of the authorisation of civil and state aircraft flights in the national air space, the ministry said.
The response comes after media reports that two F-16 fighter jets belonging to the Israeli air forces entered the air space of several Eastern European countries on Thursday.
While Budapest officials had originally said the Israeli defence aviation had the right to fly over Hungary, Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai told the relevant ministers to immediately check the media reports, MTI news agency quoted the Hungarian government spokesman Domokos Szollar as saying.
The Hungarian premier is awaiting precise information from the ministers of foreign affairs, defence and transport, the spokesman said.
According to the Hungarian army, the Israeli jets flew close to the landing strip of the Budapest Ferihegy international airport, but they did not land. Then they turned and left the Hungarian territory, the ITV Channel 2 reported.
Hungarian daily Magyar Nemzet quoted an anonymous source as saying that two jets entered the Hungarian air space and it accompanied the news by a photo of two Israeli jets that flew over Hungary.
The Hungarian Defence Ministry had no preliminary information of this flight of the Israeli fighter jets, ministry spokesman Istvan Bocskai said. Besides Hungary, the Israeli jets also flew over Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania on Thursday.
According to the Hungarian news media, the Israeli reconnaissance jets flew over the European states in order to collect information. The media says on board the jets there is equipment for the information collection, for detection and monitoring of the moves made by small-size ground targets.The official media from Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania carried no reports of the incident, ITV Channel 2 said.