CAIRO — In a tit-for-tat move, Egypt canceled all its Kuwait-bound flights after the Gulf nation included Cairo on the list of 31 coronavirus "high risk" countries and suspended its flight operation until further notice. Egypt's national carrier, EgyptAir, said in a statement that the move is in response to the decision of Kuwait's General Directorate of Civil Aviation to suspend its commercial flights to Egypt. Meanwhile, Egyptian lawmaker Mustafa Bakri has called for the intervention of the Egyptian foreign ministry and urge the Kuwaiti government to reverse its decision. Bakry said on his official Twitter account: "I find no justification for the government of Kuwait to place Egypt among the countries where the coronavirus pandemic is spreading, and everyone knows, and WHO reports confirm the opposite." "It's a serious matter that Kuwait has suspended commercial flights to Egypt in a move that will jeopardize travel plans of hundreds of thousands of Egyptians." "This is an unjustified decision and is not based on correct information. Therefore, I wish the Kuwaiti brothers to review the decision in the light of global health reports, especially since a large number of hospitals in Egypt no longer have any patients, even the rate of new infections and deaths has dropped sharply," the Egyptian lawmaker added. Apart from Egypt, the counties Kuwait has included them on its no travel list comprise India, Pakistan, the Philippines that have large numbers of expatriates in Kuwait. Other countries are Iran, China, Bangladesh, Brazil, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Spain, Italy, Mexico, Singapore, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Serbia, Montenegro, Peru, Moldova, Singapore, Hong Kong, Panama, Chile and the Dominican Republic. For his part, Tariq Al-Muzaram, a spokesman for the Kuwaiti government, confirmed that the decision to prevent flying to and from the mentioned countries is subject to continuous reviews by the government, noting that the list is variable according to the developments of related to coronavirus, according to KUNA.
