Canada pressured to retrieve black box from Iran; "possibility of handing it over to France"
Canada's transport minister says Iran has not yet handed over the black box of the Ukrainian plane that was shot down in Iran in January.
Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 was shot down by Iranian Revolutionary Guard air defenses on the morning of January 8, 2019, killing 176 people on board.
Canadian Transport Minister Marc Garneau announced on Sunday, June 1, that the black box is still in Iran and that we will continue to put pressure (on the Islamic Republic).
Iran initially insisted that Boeing, the American aircraft manufacturer, or another country provide Iran with technical equipment to read the black box itself.
Finally, after increasing international pressure, Iran announced on March 11 that it was ready to hand over the black boxes to Ukraine or a third country within the next two weeks. Since then, the plane's black boxes have not been handed over.
At the same time, the ISNA news agency reported on Sunday that Iran, in a "new" decision, wants to "probably" send the black box of the Ukrainian plane to France.
The report claims that Iranian authorities have decided to send the plane's black box to another country, possibly France, "in response to the Ukrainian side's delay in responding to Iran's offer regarding the black box of the Ukrainian plane and also to clarify the next steps in this regard."
This is despite the fact that Ukrainian authorities had been demanding the delivery of the plane's black box since the first days of the crash.
On the other hand, in April of this year, Iran announced that the reading of the black box data from the Ukrainian passenger plane shot down in Iran had been postponed for an indefinite period due to the outbreak of the coronavirus.
Hassan Rezaeifar, head of the Civil Aviation Organization's accident investigation commission, said, "Currently, the black box of the Ukrainian Boeing is right here at the Civil Aviation Organization, and the Islamic Republic has invited representatives from eight countries to travel to a laboratory in Europe to begin this process, but these countries have requested that this program be postponed to another time due to the coronavirus outbreak."
Canada and four other countries whose citizens, including dual nationals, were killed when the IRGC fired a missile at the plane have been announcing for months that they are awaiting the delivery of the plane's black box.
After initial denials by the Islamic Republic's military and political officials, the General Staff of the Armed Forces finally announced three days later that Iran had "mistakenly" shot down a passenger plane after retaliatory attacks on two US military bases in Iraq following the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of the IRGC's Quds Force.
After the downing of the passenger plane, protests were held in several Iranian cities, and according to official reports from the judiciary, dozens of people were arrested in connection with these protests.
Canadian lawyers for the victims of Flight 752 that crashed in February last year have filed a lawsuit in the country's courts seeking compensation worth 1.5 billion Canadian dollars (1.1 billion US dollars).
Source: Radio Farda
