Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has turned down Iran's offer to pay US$150,000 in compensation for each person killed in the downing of Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) Flight PS752 by the Iranian military.
Press Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Oleh Nikolenko announced this in a comment for UNIAN.
Read alsoTen Iranian officials indicted for shooting Ukraine passenger plane
"The ultimate goal of Ukraine and other affected states should be to ensure justice for the victims of the Ukrainian flight PS752 tragedy and their relatives, and to prevent such crimes in the future. Of course, the issue of compensation is an important element of this process," Nikolenko said.
"Prior to that, all the circumstances of the downing of the plane by Iran should be established and all those guilty should be brought to justice. Only then we can talk about the amount of the compensation. The specific amount of the compensation should be the result of an agreement between the governments of all states whose citizens were killed in the plane crash, rather than a unilateral decision. Instead, we expect Iran to fulfill in good faith the agreements reached during the third round of consultations in Kyiv on June 2-3, as well as the previous two rounds," he said.
As Iranian Ambassador to Ukraine and Moldova Manouchehr Moradi said on Twitter on June 4, 2021, during the third round of talks in Kyiv this week, the Iranian delegation "announced its readiness to pay US$150,000 in compensation per each killed person to the Ukrainian families of those killed in the crash, in accordance with a resolution of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and asked the Ukrainian delegation to bring this information to the attention of the relatives of the killed Ukrainians."
PS752 downing: Background
- On January 8, 2020, Kyiv-bound Boeing 737 passenger jet flight PS752, operated by Ukraine International Airlines (UIA), was shot down in Iran shortly after takeoff from Tehran Airport. All 176 people on board, including 11 Ukrainian nationals – nine crew and two passengers – were killed. Among the victims were also citizens of Iran, Canada, Sweden, Afghanistan, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
- Three days later, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani admitted that the Ukrainian liner had been shot down as a result of an unintentional "human error," and promised to bring those responsible to justice.
- On October 19, 2020, Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Yevhen Yenin met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Tehran. After the meeting, Yenin said Iran was ready to provide equal compensations to the relatives of all victims of the UIA plane, regardless of their citizenship. However, on December 9, 2020, Yenin said Iran had withdrawn the offer to handle the compensations.
- On December 31, 2020, at the fifth attempt, Iran submitted to Ukraine a draft technical report on the plane downing. Ukraine had two months to provide comments and suggestions on the report.
- Later it became known about secret audio recordings that indicate that the Iranian authorities will never reveal the truth about the downing of the Ukrainian plane.
- According to Canada's CBC News, the Canadian government and security agencies are examining an audio recording in which a man – identified by sources as Iran's foreign affairs minister – discusses the possibility that the destruction of flight PS752 was an intentional act.
- In late February 2021, Ukraine handed more than 90 pages of comments on the draft technical report over to Iran and insisted that Iran include them in the final document.
- On March 17, 2021, Iran released a final report, which stated it was an error by an air defense operator for the accidental downing of UIA Flight PS752. The plane was identified as a hostile target.
- In turn, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Iran's final report on PS752 had failed to take into account Ukraine's remarks and contained manipulative conclusions.
In April 2021, it became known that ten Iranian officials were allegedly indicted over the downing of Flight PS752.
On June 3, 2021, it was reported Afghanistan would no longer participate in negotiations with Iran as part of the International Coordination and Response Group for the victims of Flight PS752.
