Cairo, February 18 (RHC)-- A Libyan commercial flight heading for the Turkish city of Istanbul was forced to return to a Libyan airport after Egypt allegedly denied access to overfly its airspace.

According to Tripoli's Matiga airport and Libyan Airlines, the plane returned to the capital city after Egypt informed it that the carrier did not have permission to enter the Egyptian airspace on Tuesday. The Tobruk airport in eastern Libya has also announced that all flights between the country and Egypt had been halted.

Libyan airlines are forced to enter Egyptian airspace in order to reach Turkey since the EU has imposed an overfly ban for Cyprus due to security reasons. As most foreign carriers have ceased working with Libya, such a ban will push Libya further into seclusion as Turkey was one of the last countries its airlines were flying to.

Earlier, Morocco announced that it had suspended all flights to and from Libya for security reasons. Last July, foreign carriers halted flights to Libya after the Libya Dawn (the Fajr Libya) militia alliance attacked a rival faction that was in control of Tripoli's main airport.

On Monday, Egypt started airstrikes on suspected ISIL Takfiri terrorists in Libya, following the mass beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians by the terrorists.