Flight 752: Canada and Ukraine demand transparency and compensation from Iran
The foreign ministers of Ukraine and Canada met on Wednesday, July 6, to discuss the issue of receiving compensation from Iran for the families of the victims of Ukrainian Airlines Flight 752, which was shot down by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps in January 2019.
The Canadian Foreign Ministry announced in a report that Canadian Foreign Minister Marc Garneau and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kulba reaffirmed the two countries' commitments to cooperate with each other, to ensure justice, to provide transparency around the incident, and to obtain compensation for the families of the passengers on the flight.
The meeting took place on the sidelines of the Ukrainian Reform Conference in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Ukrainian media reported, citing the country's Foreign Ministry, that Mr. Kolba and Mr. Garneau also discussed deepening the special relations between the two countries in the defense, political and humanitarian spheres.
Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 was hit by IRGC air defense missiles moments after taking off from the runway of Imam Khomeini Airport near Tehran on the morning of January 8, 2019, killing all 176 passengers, some of whom were Canadian citizens.
Iran says “human error” was the cause of the incident, but the governments of Canada and Ukraine have repeatedly accused the Islamic Republic of covering up the incident and have demanded full information. Some of the victims’ families also say the Revolutionary Guard Corps “deliberately” targeted the plane, a claim the Islamic Republic has denied.
Meanwhile, the military prosecutor's office said it has issued arrest warrants for 10 people, but the families of the victims of the flight say that these 10 people are all "nameless and unrecognized" people and "a restraining order has been issued for the main perpetrators and perpetrators of this crime, who are high-ranking government officials."
According to the families, "The families' lawyers' attempts to study the case, learn about the expert testimony, interrogations, statements of the accused, and find out their names have also been unsuccessful."
The issue of compensation for the families also remains unresolved. In June of this year, four countries - Canada, Britain, Sweden, and Ukraine - formed a group led by Canada, calling on Iran to begin formal negotiations on compensation for the survivors of the Ukrainian plane victims and emphasizing that the Islamic Republic must accept its legal responsibility in this regard.
The Iranian government had previously approved paying $150,000 to the Iranian and non-Iranian survivors of the victims of the downing of the Ukrainian plane, but many families had rejected the amount.
Source: Radio Farda
