Austria refuses US requests to overfly its territory, citing its neutrality policy

Published on 02/04/2026 - 15:55 GMT+2

Austria has rejected US requests for subject overflights of its territory since the commencement of the Iran warfare successful enactment with its argumentation of neutrality, a defence ministry spokesperson said connected Thursday.

"There person so been requests and they were refused from the outset," Colonel Michael Bauer said, adding that each clip a akin petition "involves a state astatine war, it is refused."

Austria has been a neutral state since 1955 and is surrounded to the north, south, and eastbound by NATO subordinate states, with neutral Switzerland to the west.

In mid-March, Switzerland, besides invoking its neutrality, said it had refused the usage of its airspace.

US President Donald Trump has criticised European members of the trans-Atlantic defence confederation for refusing US subject craft support to usage their airspace for operations connected to the war.

The bureau of French President Emmanuel Macron expressed astonishment astatine Trump's disapproval of France arsenic being “very unhelpful” for not letting planes carrying subject supplies for the struggle alert implicit its territory.

On Tuesday, it emerged that Italy had besides denied a US craft support to onshore portion it was en way to the Middle East for a combat mission.

And Spain has banned each US subject craft progressive successful the warfare from utilizing its airspace and subject bases, extending an earlier regularisation that applied lone to 2 American installations connected Spanish soil.

Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares confirmed the expanded prohibition connected Monday, telling Catalan vigor presumption Rac 1 that Madrid would artifact immoderate US flights linked to the struggle from entering Spanish airspace.

"Spain should not bash thing that could escalate" the conflict, Albares said. He added that the determination reflects the "majority sentiment" of Spaniards who reason the warfare and aligns with UN principles.

Those decisions, arsenic good arsenic allies' reluctance to articulation a naval unit to reopen the important Strait of Hormuz, led Trump to slam NATO arsenic a "paper tiger" connected Wednesday and accidental it was "beyond reconsideration" that the US would retreat from the alliance.

"I was ne'er swayed by NATO. I ever knew they were a insubstantial tiger and Putin knows that too, by the way," Trump said.

Those comments were echoed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said the US would “have to reexamine” its narration with NATO.

"I deliberation there's nary doubt, unfortunately, aft this struggle is concluded, we are going to person to reexamine that relationship. We're going to person to reexamine the worth of NATO successful that confederation for our country," Rubio said to big Sean Hannity connected Fox News.

But Trump’s comments were slammed by France’s president connected Thursday, who said the US president was undermining NATO by creating "daily uncertainty astir his commitment" to the northbound Atlantic alliance.

"If you make regular uncertainty astir your commitment, you hollow it out," Macron said during a authorities sojourn to Seoul, adding that determination is "too overmuch speech ... going disconnected successful each directions."

Additional sources • AP, AFP