"Step by step, we are coming closer to people, and if the progress of the investigation will be like in the previous period, I hope also that also by then we will be further with this," he said.
According to Westerbeke, there are no known suspects yet. "There are, as we have always called it 'persons of interest' where we really have a more than average attention, given their role as we have observed to date, but we have not yet formally designated people as suspect," he said.
In his words, the investigation is not finished yet." We are still working hard and, but that also means that we are not ready yet to draw conclusions; or that we can indicate are that we are almost there. <…> I think we really need the period until the end of the year and then we might again bring new information to the outside," he said.
Westerbeke confirmed that it was possible to establish whose "Buk" system – Russian or Ukrainian – had hit the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777. "Of course there are multiple ways to determine where "Buk" missile systems come from, where they were produced and with whom they were, and that is precisely the research we currently have to do next," he said.
UNIAN's memo. Flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was downed in Donetsk region on July 17, 2014. There is mounting evidence that the plane was shot down by a powerful Buk-M anti-aircraft missile system. All 298 people on board were killed. Most of the passengers, 194, were Dutch citizens, while 43 people, including all of the aircraft's crew, were citizens of Malaysia.
The plane crashed near Shakhtarsk in Donetsk region, in an area controlled by Russian-backed militants.
The bodies of the crash victims were transferred to the Netherlands for forensic medical examination and identification.
On July 24, 2014, Ukraine delegated the investigation of the aircraft crash to the Netherlands.
On July 9, 2015, Malaysia published a draft UN Security Council resolution calling for establishing an international tribunal to investigate the MH17 crash.
Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Malaysia, and Ukraine appealed to the UN Security Council to set up an international criminal tribunal on MH17. Russia vetoed the resolution on the tribunal on July 29, 2015.
After the vote, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands Bert Koenders said the Netherlands, Malaysia, Australia, Belgium and Ukraine will continue the search for mechanisms to bring to justice those who shot down the aircraft.
