Yenin: Any official reports on cause of UIA plane crash must be based on legally established facts

Any official reports on the cause of UIA plane crash near Tehran airport must be based on legally established facts, so it is incorrect to talk about completion of the investigation without decoding the black boxes.

"We must trust, primarily, the signed documents, not just fair words... At present, the Iranian side emphasizes that this [the reason for downing of the plane] was a human error. We insist that any official reports on the causes of the tragedy should be based primarily on the relevant legally established facts, i.e. the completed technical investigation, the completed criminal proceedings. It is incorrect to say that these processes were completed without decoding the black boxes both in terms of establishing justice and in terms of emotions of the relatives of the dead," Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine Yevhen Yenin said on the air of Ukraine 24 TV channel on Sunday, commenting on the statement of the Iranian colleague about the speedy completion of the investigation, an Ukrinform correspondent reported.

Yenin noted that the Ukrainian side was in constant contact not only with the Iranian authorities, but also with the leadership of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

"The next meeting of the ICAO Council will begin on June 8. At the last meeting two months ago, the Iranian delegation expressed readiness to hand over the black boxes for decoding to a third country within a maximum of two weeks," the Ukrainian deputy foreign minister said.

On June 6, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister for International Affairs and Legal Affairs Mohsen Baharvand said that the investigation into the downing of the UIA plane near Tehran airport was almost complete, and decoding of black boxes was the only remaining stage of the investigation. However, he added that Tehran did not believe that the flight recorders contain any important information that could be useful for the investigation.

The Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) plane (Flight PS752) heading from Tehran to Kyiv crashed shortly after taking off from the Imam Khomeini International Airport at about 06:00 Tehran time (04:30 Kyiv time) on January 8. 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). They all died.

Iran's representative to the International Civil Aviation Organization agreed back in March to hand over the recorders to France or Ukraine for decoding, but that has not been done so far.

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