By Sami Zaptia.
London, 13 April 2021:
Libya’s Antonov 124 cargo plane will be ready before the end of the year to return home, the Head of Mission at the Libyan Embassy in Kiev, Ukraine, Adel Issa, said yesterday.
The statement came after Issa, accompanied by a delegation from the embassy, made a field visit to the Antonov factory in the Ukrainian capital Kiev.
He said the visit came within the framework of the embassy’s keenness to follow up on the interests and properties of the Libyan state in the Ukrainian arena and to review the stages of maintenance work on the Antonov 124 cargo plane which belongs to the Libyan Civil Aviation executive body.
The cargo plane has been in the factory since 2010 for maintenance, and due to Libya’s instability in the past years, the maintenance work has been delayed.
However, the Libyan embassy in Ukrainian explained that thanks to new efforts made by Libyan governments to complete its maintenance, work on the giant cargo plane resumed several months ago. It added that work has been ongoing according to the specified deadlines and according to the contracts concluded and if financial obligations are fulfilled according to the schedule specified.
It will be noted that the Libyan embassy’s statement and factory visit comes on the back of media speculation that some unscrupulous ‘‘intermediaries’’ were attempting to sell off the Antonov on the pretext that Libya was not keeping up payments for maintenance.
