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Ukraine demands all details from Tehran about downed plane 

January 9, 2021 at 11:51 am

Rescue teams recover debris from a field after a Ukrainian plane carrying 176 passengers crashed near Imam Khomeini airport in the Iranian capital Tehran on 8 January 2020 [AFP via Getty Images]

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has asked Tehran to disclose all details related to its downed civilian plane last year.

On the first anniversary of the downing of the plane, the ministry published a statement about sharing the same grief with the relatives of the plane crash victims.

The ministry called on Tehran to issue a statement revealing all details about the downing of the civilian plane belonging to Ukrainian International Airlines, and take the necessary measures to ensure that the incident does not recur in the future.

Kiev holds Tehran fully responsible for downing its plane and considers it the party that should pay compensation to the families of the victims who hold Ukrainian, Afghani, Canadian, Swedish and British nationalities.

Last Tuesday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba confirmed that his country had not yet received any official Iranian statement about the amount of compensation for the plane crash victims.

READ: Iran to pay $150,000 to families of Ukraine plane downed in error

On 8 January, 2020, a Ukrainian Boeing 737 crashed in Tehran minutes after taking off, which led to the deaths of 176 passengers.

Days after denying responsibility for the accident, the Iranian General Staff admitted in a statement that its air defence system had shot down the passenger plane due to a “human error” while crossing a “sensitive military area”.

Meanwhile, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced the Iranian air forces’ responsibility for shooting down the plane.