UIA plane crash: Kuleba rejects possibility of uncoordinated actions with partners
"I have already explained that our position has not changed. We work towards a result in close collaboration with the colleagues from the International Coordination and Response Group for the Victims of Flight PS752 Crash. These are the foreign ministers of Canada, Sweden, Afghanistan and the UK – all countries whose citizens died on January 8. On April 15, all five of us again spoke during a conference call, coordinating our next steps," Kuleba said in an interview with the Radio Liberty, commenting on some media reports about a "memorandum" from Iran.
He emphasized that the purpose of all international group participants remains unchanged: establishing justice, paying compensation to families, conducting comprehensive, independent and transparent investigation, and holding perpetrators responsible for the aircraft crash in accordance with international law.
"All of these things are done to somehow help family members and close ones of the deceased to overcome their pain and grief with which they have been living for a hundred days already. They deserve justice. I assure you that no one can even think about betraying these people or acting not in coordination with other partners. So may these media reports be discussed with the media outlets themselves," Kuleba stressed.
Earlier, Radio Farda reported that the Iranian authorities had sent the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine a draft memorandum of understanding to prevent Kyiv from filing lawsuits over the UIA plane crash near Tehran on January 8.
The Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) plane (Flight PS752) heading from Tehran to Kyiv crashed shortly after taking off from the Imam Khomeini International Airport at about 06:00 Tehran time (04:30 Kyiv time) on January 8. 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). They all died.
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.
It emerged later that the UIA plane had been shot down by two missiles of the Tor-M1 air defense system, which Iran received from Russia.
The International Coordination and Response Group for the Victims of Flight PS752 Crash has insisted on the transfer of flight recorders to France which has the necessary technical capabilities for decoding them.
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