Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Says Date For Trilateral Meeting On MH17 Crash Not Set Yet

Sumaira FH Published June 11, 2019 | 06:18 PM

The date for a new trilateral meeting of Australia, the Netherlands and Russia on the Boeing MH17 crash in the eastern Ukrainian breakaway region of Donbas in 2014 has not yet been determined, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said on Tuesday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th June, 2019) The date for a new trilateral meeting of Australia, the Netherlands and Russia on the Boeing MH17 crash in the eastern Ukrainian breakaway region of Donbas in 2014 has not yet been determined, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said on Tuesday.

In March, Grushko confirmed that Australia, the Netherlands and Russia had held a meeting on the Boeing MH17 crash and said that the parties of the trilateral meeting agreed that the consultations would remain confidential.

"No, it is unknown. We have an agreement on the confidential nature of this kind of dialogue," Grushko told reporters on the sidelines of the Primakov Readings international forum in Moscow.

The MH17 flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed near the city of Donetsk on July 17, 2014. All 298 passengers, mostly Dutch nationals, and crew members were killed. Kiev accused local militias of downing the aircraft, while they said that had no weapons capable of downing such a plane.

The Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team's (JIT) concluded that the plane had been allegedly downed by a Buk missile that belonged to the Russian Armed Forces and had been delivered to the militia in the Donbas region. The militia, in turn, insists that it did not possess weapons that could hit a target at such an altitude.

Russia, which has been excluded from the investigation, has also repeatedly denied the accusations about its involvement in the tragedy, arguing that it had provided the JIT with evidence proving that it was Ukraine's Buk systems that hit the Boeing, but that the information had been ignored by the investigators.

The Primakov Readings is an international forum, dedicated to the memory of late academician and diplomat Yevgeny Primakov, former Russian foreign minister and prime minister. This year, at least 80 leading experts from 29 countries and more than 600 representatives from Russian think tanks as well as political and business circles joined the event.