UIA plane crash: Talks on compensation possible only after establishing all circumstances

Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Oleg Nikolenko said this in a comment to Ukrinform.

He noted that the ultimate goal of the efforts of Ukraine and other affected states should be to ensure justice for the victims of the tragedy and their relatives and not to repeat such a crime in the future.

“Of course, the issue of payment of compensation is an important element of this process. At the same time, it must be preceded by establishing all the circumstances of Iran's downing of the plane and bringing the perpetrators to justice. Only after that we can talk about the amount of cash payments,” Nikolenko said.

He added that the specific amount of compensation should be the result of an agreement between the governments of all states, the citizens of which died in the plane crash, but not a unilateral decision.

"Instead, we expect Iran to faithfully implement the agreements reached in the third round of consultations in Kyiv on June 2-3, as well as in the previous two rounds," the Foreign Ministry spokesman emphasized.

As Ukrinform reported, the Iranian side during the third round of negotiations declared its readiness to pay USD 150,000 in compensation to each family of those killed in the downing of a UIA passenger plane.

The third round of talks between Ukraine and Iran on the UIA plane shot down near Tehran in 2020 took place in Kyiv on June 2-3.

On January 8, 2020, Ukraine International Airlines plane (Flight PS752) heading from Tehran to Kyiv crashed shortly after taking off from the Imam Khomeini International Airport. 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). All of them died.

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