Ukraine: Many issues remain unclear in downing of passenger plane
Ukraine's foreign minister said "human error" cannot yet be blamed for the downing of the passenger plane. The plane's black box has not yet arrived in France for decoding. There is also disagreement over the amount of compensation to the victims' families.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kulba said on Tuesday (July 14) that many questions remain regarding the Ukrainian airliner that was shot down in Iran and that it is still not possible to attribute the downing of the plane to "human error," as Iran claims.
According to Reuters, Ukraine's foreign minister said that many questions remain unanswered regarding the incident. "We have many questions that require reasoned, impartial and objective answers to find out what really happened," he said.
On January 8, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' air defenses shot down Ukrainian Flight 752 shortly after it took off from Tehran Airport by firing two surface-to-air missiles.
The Islamic Republic initially denied shooting down the plane, but later admitted that a "catastrophic error" had occurred in a situation where the defense system was fully prepared to counter a possible US attack.
Tehran's military prosecutor recently stated in a new explanation that the Ukrainian plane was shot down due to a "radar system error" and "lack of coordination between the user of the defense system and the coordination center."
All 176 people on board Flight 752 were killed. Most of the passengers were Iranian or of Iranian descent. Citizens from Sweden, Afghanistan, Britain, Canada, and Ukraine were also among the passengers.
The Islamic Republic was unwilling to hand over the plane's black box, which could shed light on how it was shot down. Following the protests and follow-up of foreign countries, Iran finally announced last month that it would send the downed plane's black box to France so that experts from the United States, Canada, France, Britain and Ukraine could decode its data.
The black box has not yet been delivered to France.
Iran agrees to pay compensation
The Ukrainian Foreign Minister continued his remarks by saying that in the coming weeks, a delegation from Iran is scheduled to travel to the country to negotiate compensation for the survivors of the victims.
According to some reports, the Islamic Republic has set aside around $80,000 in compensation for each victim of the plane crash.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said last February that his country does not agree with the amount that Iran is willing to pay as compensation to the families of those killed in the downing of its passenger plane, considers it small, and demands greater compensation.
