Iranian Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani has agreed with his Ukrainian counterpart Alexei Danilov on not politicizing the recent plane crash in Tehran, according to the Iranian Students News Agency.
Emphasizing on preventing any misunderstanding and interference of other parties in the technical process of the investigation, Shamkhani said: “This bitter incident was due to human error and we must not allow it to turn into a political controversy with the interference of biased elements.”
"The Ukrainian experts were the first group who arrived in Iran and were provided with necessary access to start their technical and field investigation without any restrictions,” he added.
This is the first communication instance between Iranian and Ukrainian officials following a week of serious criticism by Tehran to Kiev after the Ukranian TV broadcast a call between a pilot from Iran Aseman Airlines and the control tower in Tehran.
This shows that the Iranians were aware of the plane’s crash, after striking it with a missile.
Shamkhani invited Danilov to visit Tehran for the joint investigation regarding the incident by the national security agencies of the two countries.
“Achieving a mutual technical assessment can yield the final result on this case in a professional and non-political environment,” Shamkhani stressed.
A Ukrainian plane with 176 people on board was unintentionally downed near the capital city of Tehran on January 8 by IRGC Aerospace amid the heightened tensions between Iran and the US in the past weeks. The victims include mostly Iranians and Iranian-Canadians, 11 Ukrainians, and four British nationals. Iran refuses to send the two black boxes abroad.
Two Canadian lawyers filed a lawsuit on behalf of victims against Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps', looking for at least USD1.1 billion in compensation (CAD1.5 billion).
Ukraine is pushing Iran to send the black box recorder, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said.
“The black box and cooperation with Tehran was the very difficult issue from the beginning and we will try to keep the message” focused on recovering the data, Prystaiko told the Foreign Press Association in Rome on Monday.
