He said the incident must be addressed.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin has called for a discussion, at an EU leaders meeting on Monday, of the forced landing of a Ryanair plane in the Minsk, the capital of Belarus.
Belarus has been accused of hijacking the Ryanair flight and engaging in state terrorism when it forced the plane to make an emergency landing in Minsk following a bomb threat.
The staff on the plane were told there was a bomb threat and a Mig-29 fighter was used to escort the plane down.
When the plane landed, authorities arrested Roman Protasevich, a former editor of the influential Telegram channels Nexta and Nexta Live, who has been critical of president Alexander Lukashenko.
Protasevich had been flying on an intra-EU flight from Athens to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, when the plane was diverted to Minsk while it was in Belarus airspace.
Martin requested the matter be discussed by EU leaders at a meeting in Brussels on Monday where leaders will consider how to respond to the incident.
In a tweet, he said “these unprecedented actions have caused widespread concern across the EU,” and they must be addressed at Monday’s meeting.
The Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said the plane had been “hijacked” and labelled it a “reprehensible act of state terrorism”.
“In carrying out this coercive act, the Belarusian authorities have jeopardised the safety of passengers and crew,” the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement on Monday morning.
In a statement on Sunday, Ryanair made no reference to the arrest of Roman Protasevich.
It said that the aircraft landed safely and passengers were off-loaded for security checks after they were notified of a potential security threat from Belarus air traffic control.
“Nothing untoward was found and authorities cleared the aircraft to depart together with passengers and crew after approximately five hours on the ground in Minsk,” Ryanair said.
The statement added: “Ryanair has notified the relevant national and European safety and security agencies and we apologise sincerely to all affected passengers for this regrettable delay which was outside Ryanair’s control.”
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