UIA plane crash: Prystaiko announces visit of Iranian delegation to Kyiv

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko has announced the visit of a large Iranian delegation in the near future with news on the case of a downed Ukrainian passenger plane near Tehran.

He said this during a joint press conference with Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde in Kyiv on Monday, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

"The coronavirus outbreak did not prevent us from carrying out work, we have an embassy there, we keep in touch with the Iranian side. In the near future, we expect a large delegation from Iran, which will bring us the news that we have all been waiting for," Prystaiko said.

In addition, he noted that Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne will arrive in Ukraine in a few days, and they will hold a joint phone conversation with the foreign ministers of the countries which citizens died in the plane crash.

On January 8, Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 was shot down near Tehran by an Iranian surface-to-air missile. There were 176 people on board – nine crew members (all Ukrainians) and 167 passengers (citizens of Ukraine, Iran, Canada, Sweden, Afghanistan, Germany, and the UK).

On January 11, Iran admitted that its military had accidentally shot down the Ukrainian passenger jet. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) accepted full responsibility for the downing of the Ukrainian airliner.

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