Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Wednesday agreed to “close cooperation” between their security services after Moscow said a bomb brought down its passenger jet over Sinai.
“In the context of the efforts to find the criminals involved in the terrorist act against the Russian airliner, close cooperation was agreed on between the security services of Russia and Egypt,” the Kremlin said after the leaders spoke by phone.
The intention is to put in place “additional measures to assure the maximum security of air traffic between the two countries in order to reestablish it as soon as possible,” the statement said.
Moscow on Tuesday said for the first time the Airbus plane that crashed shortly after take-off from the Sharm el-Sheikh resort on October 31 was destroyed by a bomb but Egypt has not confirmed the attack.
Cairo has insisted it is waiting for the results of an Egyptian-led probe before giving a verdict on cause of crash that killed 224 people on board.
Egyptian authorities, however, said they were enhancing security in airports over the possibility the plane was “targeted by a terrorist attack”.
Putin has pledged to find and “punish” those responsible for the attack the bloodiest against a Russian target since the Beslan school massacre in 2004 — and his security service has offered a $50 million reward to help find the culprits.