Iran says the data from the “black box” will be analysed at home, but Ukraine wants to do this in Kyiv
KIEV, Jan 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) —It is too soon to draw any conclusions on what brought down a Ukrainian passenger plane in Iran on Wednesday, Ukraine’s foreign minister has said.
“We have so many different versions of what could [have] happened to the plane that we need some time to really understand,” Vadym Prystaiko said.
His comments come a day after Western powers said they had strong evidence that the plane was hit by an Iranian missile – a claim rejected by Tehran.
All 176 people on board were killed.
The Ukrainian flight was headed to the Canadian city of Toronto via Kyiv.
The crash of Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 near Tehran airport came just hours after Iran carried out missile strikes on two airbases housing US forces in Iraq.
Victims of the crash included 82 Iranians, 57 Canadians and 11 Ukrainians as well as nationals from Sweden, the UK, Afghanistan and Germany.
At Friday’s news briefing in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, Prystaiko reiterated that at this stage Ukrainian investigators were not ruling out any possible cause of the crash.
But he called for the “level of speculation” to be reduced, adding that Ukraine wanted to establish an “international coalition” to conduct a thorough investigation.
Prystaiko said nearly 50 Ukrainian investigators were already working in Iran, and there was “full co-operation” from Tehran.
“We are analysing pieces of the body of the plane, we are analysing the bodies of the people who died in the crash.
“We are analysing the chemical residues on the body of the plane. We will come to our conclusion, we don’t want to come to them right now.
“Our team has now got access to the black boxes,” he said, stressing that Ukraine wanted them to be analysed in Kyiv.
Iran earlier said it would download the information itself, adding that the process could take up to two months.
Kyiv earlier said the US had passed on “important data” about the crash, without providing any further details.
Ukraine’s team in Iran includes experts who worked on the investigation into the 2014 downing by a missile of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine. — NNN-AGENCIES
