Turkey to take airline electronics ban to ICAO

By Fatih Erkan Dogan and Bahattin Gonultas

ANKARA

Turkey’s transport minister said on Thursday Ankara would take the British and United States partial ban on electronics in the cabins of commercial airplanes to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

“The number-one authority on the issue is the ICAO,” Ahmet Arslan told reporters.

“We [Turkey] are also a council member of ICAO. We will keep fighting against it in the ICAO. If you are afraid of terror, you should be afraid no matter where it comes from and take measures accordingly," he added.

Arslan said his ministry had sent a letter to the U.S. demanding it remove Turkey from a list of countries subject to the restrictions.

“In our letter to officials we stressed that terror activities and terrorists are present in every corner of the world and the fight against them should be performed synchronically and in coordination in all parts of the world,” he said.

The Turkish minister said no one had the right to say “Turkey fails in this or that issue”.

"There is not even a single deficiency. We implement measures even ahead of requirements of the ICAO and continue to do so,” he added.

Arslan has previously hit out at the U.S. ban. “This practice is neither fair for our country nor for the United States,” he said on Tuesday after the restrictions made global headlines.

Security measures

The country's national flag carrier, Turkish Airlines, operate non-stop flights to the U.S. and the U.K. from Istanbul’s Ataturk International Airport which dealt with just over 60 million passengers in 2016, according to airport operator TAV data.

Turkey already takes all necessary precautions to ensure safe flights, Arslan added.

On Tuesday, the U.S. issued stringent regulations for airline passengers carrying electronic devices. The country's Department of Homeland Security said the restrictions would apply to flights from 10 foreign airports in eight Muslim-majority countries, including Ataturk Airport.

It cited fresh “evaluated intelligence” that suggested terror groups continued to target commercial flights by “smuggling explosive devices in various consumer items”.

The United Kingdom later issued a similar ban on all flights from airports in Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Tunisia.

For people departing from the airports specified by the U.S., devices larger than a mobile telephone -- such as tablets, portable DVD players, laptops and cameras -- are prohibited from being carried aboard but can be placed in checked luggage.

Medical devices are exempt but still have to be scanned before being taken aboard.

In addition to Ataturk, the U.S. specified the following airports: Jordan's Queen Alia International Airport; Cairo International Airport; King Abdul-Aziz International Airport and King Khalid International Airport in Saudi Arabia; Morocco's Mohammed V Airport; Hamad International Airport in Qatar; Dubai International Airport and Abu Dhabi International Airport in the United Arab Emirates; and Kuwait International Airport.

ICAO, an agency of the United Nations, said on Wednesday it was for each country to decide whether to take security measures.

It said in a statement it supported "global uniformity" in regulations in order to facilitate international travel.

"Finding an effective balance between safety and security approaches is always a priority in global aviation," it added.