Iran to compensate Ukrainian plane crash victims with $150,000
Iran’s Cabinet on Wednesday allocated $150,000 for the families of each of the 176 victims of a Ukrainian plane shot down in Iranian airspace in January, the official IRNA news agency reported.
According to the IRNA report, an Iranian government statement said: “The cabinet approved the provision of $150,000 or the equivalent in euros as soon as possible to the families and survivors of each of the victims of the Ukrainian plane crash.”
Ukraine has already defined Iran's way of operating as "unacceptable" and called for those responsible to be brought to justice, in addition to the financial compensation requested. The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the amount of compensation should be determined through negotiations, taking into account international practice, and that establishing the causes of the tragedy and bringing those responsible to justice is a prerequisite.
“The Ukrainian side expects from Iran a draft technical report on the circumstances of the aircraft shooting down,” ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko said, adding that Iran had yet to implement earlier agreements, without giving details. “This situation is especially unacceptable, since we are talking about the fate of innocent people,” Nikolenko said.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have said they accidentally shot down the Ukraine International Airlines plane shortly after takeoff, mistaking it for a missile when tensions with the United States were high on account of the sanctions imposed by the US giant in connection with Iran's failure to comply with the nuclear pact (JCPOA). The flight was shot down on January 8 by two Revolutionary Guard missiles by mistake, according to Iranian military sources, killing 176 people. The incident also occurred scarcely five days after the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani by US drones near Baghdad airport.
Despite Ukrainian claims, Iran’s transport minister Mohammad Eslami told state television that the final report on the crash had been sent to the countries participating in the investigation. The Iranian Minister of Roads and Urban Development himself announced in June that the black boxes from the Ukraine International Airlines plane were to be sent to Kiev to shed light on what happened.
Under United Nations rules, Iran retains overall control of the air investigation while the United States and Ukraine are accredited as the countries where the jet was respectively built and operated. Canada has played a role as the home of many of the victims on the downed plane.
The international rules on air accident investigations known as Annex 13 include a recommendation that a final report be issued within 12 months, which in this case extends until early January.
A spokesperson for Canada's Transport Safety Board (TSB) said the agency was informed that a "preliminary investigation report would be distributed" this week, although the TSB will not have access to it. The TSB will only receive a copy of the final report when it is published.