The government on Wednesday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flights to and from Kyrgyzstan this week would take the longer route via Oman and Iran, although New Delhi is reported to have sought and secured over-flight permission from Islamabad.

The latest decision follows criticism of the move to seek special favours from Pakistan for the Prime Minister’s flight at a time when ordinary air passengers have been paying extra for the longer route to fly west. Islamabad has closed most of its airspace to flights to and from India since the February-end Balakot air strike.

Many policy wonks also saw the request to Islamabad as another flip flop by the Modi government on Pakistan, arguing that this undermines India’s tough stance towards the neighbouring country.

It was the external affairs ministry that on Wednesday revealed that the Prime Minister’s flight to and from Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital and venue of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, would travel via Oman and Iran.

“The Government of India had explored two options for the route to be taken by the VVIP aircraft to Bishkek. A decision has now been taken that the VVIP aircraft will fly via Oman, Iran and Central Asian countries on the way to Bishkek,” the ministry spokesperson said to the media’s queries.

On Monday, while briefing reporters on Modi’s June 13-14 trip to Bishkek, the secretary (west) in the foreign ministry, A. Gitesh Sarma, had said that commenting on the Prime Minister’s route was beyond his ministry’s realm.

“Difficult for me to get into aspects related to the Prime Minister’s flights, routes, the technical aspects. These are dealt (with) differently; there are other dimensions, security and other kinds of dimensions,” he had said, on being asked whether an over-flight permission had been sought from Islamabad.

“They are processed very differently. So this is perhaps not the right place to discuss and we would not be the right people to be answering this question.”

Later that day, Pakistan confirmed that it had decided to allow Modi’s flight to use the part of its northern airspace that lies on the shortest route between India and Bishkek.

Although Islamabad has lifted the airspace restrictions for most international carriers in recent weeks, just two of the 11 routes are open for flights to and from India, and these lie over Pakistan’s southern parts.

“The government of India had explored two options for the route to be taken by the VVIP aircraft to Bishkek. A decision has now been taken that the VVIP aircraft will fly via Oman, Iran and Central Asian countries on the way to Bishkek,” MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said.