UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon reportedly arrived in Pristina Tuesday morning with a 45-minute delay because Serbia did not allow his plane to fly over Serbian territory en route to Kosovo.

According to reports of Kosovo's Koha Dittore newspaper, as cited by the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency (BTA), the plane carrying the UN Secretary General was denied an international code to fly to Pristina over Serbian territory just one day after a meeting between senior Serbian officials and Ban Ki-moon which yielded vows of total commitment to solve the problems with Kosovo.

The newspaper cites diplomatic sources as saying that the Serbian authorities ignored the calls of diplomats and the aircraft was forced to cross Skopje on its way to Pristina and was 45 minutes late.

Kosovo's daily notes that the same happened last year when German Chancellor Angela Merkel had to fly from Belgrade to Pristina via Skopje.

Katarina Andric-Milosavlevic, Spokesperson of Serbia's Civil Aviation Directorate, told Tanjug that the authority had not received a request for approving Ban Ki-moon's flight from Belgrade to Pristina.

The UN Secretary General started a six-day tour of the Western Balkans on July 20.

Flights from Serbia to Kosovo and from Kosovo to Serbia were stopped with a decision of the authorities of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on May 6, 1999, which was confirmed by the Republic of Serbia in 2005.

The only exceptions are humanitarian flights and flights of senior state officials, which need a permission issued by the Foreign Ministry.

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