WASHINGTON (REUTERS) – The United States Transportation Department finalised an order on Tuesday (July 6) banning ticket sales for air travel between the US and Belarus, acting after Minsk forced a Ryanair flight to land and arrested a dissident journalist who was aboard.

The department on June 29 had issued a show cause order proposing the restrictions after the US State Department determined that limiting travel between the US and Belarus was in Washington’s foreign policy interest in the light of the diversion of the Ryanair flight.

The order, which is effectively immediately, also applies to interline travel in which tickets are purchased through one airline that contain flights operated by multiple airlines.

Under consideration by the US government for several weeks, the order is mostly symbolic since relatively few tickets are purchased for travel to Belarus from US-based travel services.

The Air Line Pilots Association said in written comments it strongly supports the action, adding that the “aggressive and unwarranted interception of a passenger aircraft over Belarus is a flagrant violation of Belarus’s obligations…and flaunts accepted norms of international behaviour”.

The association urged the department “to ensure that all measures of sanctions at State’s disposal are deployed to compel a final and apologetic resolution by Belarus. A message should be sent that aggressive action against civil aircraft will be met with a swift and appropriate response to deter similar conduct by any other would-be state actors”.

After the May 23 forced landing of the Ryanair flight, which was en route from Athens to Vilnius, the US government advised passenger airlines to use “extreme caution” when flying over Belarus. At the time, however, the US stopped short of imposing any restrictions.

The order allows the US government “to make case-by-case exceptions for any transportation deemed to be in the national interest of the United States, including on humanitarian or national security grounds”, it said.

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