(Adds Garuda statement)
JAKARTA, July 18 (Reuters) - Indonesia's president said on Friday he had instructed national airlines to avoid flying over Ukraine and the Gaza Strip after a Malaysian airliner with 298 people aboard was shot down.
"I have issued instructions for Indonesian airlines to avoid conflict areas, especially Ukraine ... and the Gaza Strip," President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said in a televised address.
World leaders demanded an international investigation into the shooting down of the Malaysia Airlines plane over eastern Ukraine, killing everyone on board.
Indonesia's Garuda Airlines said in a statement that it did not pass through Ukraine in its non-stop Jakarta-Amsterdam route. (Reporting by Gayatri Suroyo and Fransiska Nangoy; Editing by Ron Popeski and Stephen Coates)
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