16:45 30.12.2020

Ukraine still does not receive technical report on downed UIA plane from Iran – Enin

4 min read
Ukraine still does not receive technical report on downed UIA plane from Iran – Enin

The Ukrainian side still has not received any technical report from the Iranian side about the downed plane of Ukraine International Airlines (UIA), however the implementation of the agreements reached earlier will largely determine the further date of the next round of negotiations with Iran, Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Yevhen Enin said.

"The Ukrainian side has not yet received any technical report from the Iranian side. At the last teleconference held between all parties involved in the technical investigation, Iran once again assured that the stage of translation of the document is almost done and it will be transferred to the Ukrainian side in the near future," Enin said in an exclusive interview with the Interfax-Ukraine.

He said that according to the procedure provided for in Annex 13 of the Chicago Convention (Convention on International Civil Aviation); the party responsible for the technical investigation (in this case Iran) is obliged to submit a report on the completion of the technical investigation.

"Within 30 days, each of the participating parties has the right to express warnings, recommendations, and remarks. After that, within 60 days, the Iranian side will be able to publish a public version of the report. In the future, it must be approved by the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization [ICAO], and after that it will be a finalized document," the deputy foreign minister said.

Enin said that this document is extremely important, since within the framework of a technical investigation all causes of the disaster should be established, and this in turn lays the foundations necessary to open a criminal investigation and to bring all perpetrators to justice, as well as to develop recommendations for eliminating shortcomings and ensuring that similar disasters do not recur in the future.

"It is the technical report that must finally establish whether it is a technical error of a person, or a systemic failure in the organization of the safety system for civil flights in the skies over Iran," he said.

The deputy minister said that Ukraine's position is unchanged.

"We are primarily interested in an impartial, objective technical investigation, ensuring transparent criminal prosecution and bringing all perpetrators to justice, providing guarantees that relevant incidents will not recur in the future, as well as ensuring a decent level of compensation for the relatives of those killed in the disaster, the airline and the state of Ukraine," Enin said.

According to him, at the last round of negotiations, the Iranian side undertook a number of obligations, in particular, regarding the transfer of relevant reports to the Ukrainian side, and ensuring a more transparent criminal investigation.

He said that the Iranian side declares its commitment to the early completion of the negotiation process, however, more objectively Ukraine will judge by the results of specific actions taken by Iran.

"Today we are not considering any other options, except for the negotiation process with the Iranian side. At the same time, we have already informed Tehran that if the negotiation process reaches a dead end or its possibilities are exhausted, then we, together with other affected states, can take advantage of other mechanisms to ensure violated rights, in particular, we are talking about the possibility of applying to the International Court of Justice or one of the international arbitrations," the deputy minister said.

Enin noted that the most sensitive element, besides the restoration of justice, is the amount of compensation.

He said that Ukraine is doing everything to induce the Iranian side to be more open in the investigation of this disaster, in particular, calls on it to create a joint investigation team or to involve Ukrainian investigators and prosecutors in joint investigative actions, investigative experiments, interrogations, etc.

"In words, the Iranian side is supposedly supportive of this, at the same time, 'the devil is in the details', and we are waiting for the implementation of the promised in practice," the deputy foreign minister said.

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