Delegation From Kiev Arrives In Tehran For Negotiations On Downed Ukrainian Jet - Ministry

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 19th October, 2020) A delegation from Kiev has arrived in the Iranian capital of Tehran for negotiations to establish all the circumstances that led to the downing of a Ukraine International Airlines passenger jet this past January, Yevheniy Yenin, Ukraine's deputy foreign minister, said on Monday.

"The Ukrainian delegation has arrived in Iran. We are starting negotiations regarding the Ukrainian plane that was shot down in January," the deputy foreign minister said in a video that was published on the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry's Facebook page.

Yenin said that three teams of negotiators will hold talks to clarify the circumstances that led to the jet being shot down immediately after takeoff from Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport.

"Is it a matter of human error, or is it the result of miscalculations in the system of organizing flights over Iran? Three groups will work to establish this - aviation experts, investigators, and prosecutors, as well as the military.

Reaching justice is a priority for our society, and we will not back down, regardless of how bitter the truth is," Yenin stated.

On January 8, a Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737-800 jet crashed immediately after takeoff from Tehran, killing all 176 people on board. Three days later, the Iranian military admitted that the jet was shot down after armed forces personnel mistook it for a hostile cruise missile.

The black boxes from the downed aircraft were sent to France in July for decoding. At that time, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said that Tehran was ready to pay compensation for the incident.