RFL/RE – Iran says it will send the black boxes of a downed Ukrainian airliner to France for analysis in the “next few days” and expressed readiness to resolve the issue of compensations to the families of the victims.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif made the remarks in a phone call with his Canadian counterpart, Francois-Philippe Champagne, his ministry said in a statement on June 22.
Champagne said that Zarif had committed to sending the flight recorders to France without further delay.
The Canadian minister, who has consistently pressed Iran to compensate the families of victims, also said Iran had “agreed to enter into negotiations for reparations.”
According to the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Tehran has told Kyiv it was ready to “resolve legal issues and discuss how to compensate the families” of victims, but was yet to receive a delegation from the other party.
Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 was shot down by Iran’s air defenses after taking off from Tehran’s main airport on January 8.
All 176 people on board the Kyiv-bound aircraft were killed in what Tehran later acknowledged was a “mistake.”
Iranian forces had been on high alert at the time of the tragedy, which came hours after Iran had launched missile strikes on an Iraqi military base housing U.S. troops.
The Iranian strikes were carried out in response to the killing of a top Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani, in a U.S. drone strike near Baghdad airport.
The Ukrainian airliner’s cockpit voice and data “black box” recorders were the subject of an international standoff after the plane was shot down.
They are expected to contain information about the last moments before the aircraft was struck and crashed.
The 176 victims included 82 Iranian citizens and 63 Canadians, many of them of Iranian origin.
France’s BEA air accident investigation agency is known as one of the world’s leading organizations for reading flight recorders.