MOSCOW (AP) – In an abrupt turnaround, Russia on Friday suspended all passenger flights to Egypt after days of resisting U.S. and British suggestions that a bomb may have brought down a Russian plane in the Sinai Peninsula a week ago.

The move dealt a sharp blow to both countries’ tourism sectors amid fears about security in Egypt.

Russia’s federal aviation agency said airlines would be allowed to send empty planes to bring home travelers, but it was unclear when the Russians in Egypt, estimated to number at least 40,000, would be able to return home as planned from the Red Sea resorts including Sharm el-Sheikh.

Within hours of the Oct. 31 crash of the Metrojet Airbus 321-200 that killed all 224 aboard – mostly Russians – a faction of the Islamic State militant group claimed to have downed it in retaliation for Moscow’s airstrikes that began a month earlier against fighters in Syria. The claim was initially dismissed on the grounds that the IS affiliate in Egypt’s troubled Sinai region didn’t have missiles capable of hitting high-flying planes.

British and U.S. officials, guided primarily by intelligence intercepts and satellite imagery, suggested a bomb might have been aboard the aircraft. The Russians and Egyptians called that premature, saying the investigation had not concluded.