MFA on fifth anniversary of downing of UIA plane: Iran continues to confirm its status as killer
On the fifth anniversary of the downing of Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 by Iran, which killed 176 people, Tehran continues to confirm its status as a murderer, providing military and political support to Russia in its armed aggression against Ukraine.
According to Censor.NET, this is stated in a statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.
The ministry expressed condolences to the families of the victims who were on board UIA flight PS752 from Tehran to Kyiv.
The Foreign Ministry recalled that five years ago, Iran killed 176 people aboard Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 in Iranian airspace.
Members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched two surface-to-air missiles against the civilian plane in flight.
"Iran has grossly violated a number of international law norms: it used weapons against a civilian aircraft in flight, failed to take all measures to prevent the downing, and did not ensure either a transparent and objective investigation into the circumstances of the crash or proper prosecution of the accused," the statement said.
Ukraine, along with its partner countries whose citizens died in the crash, is still seeking to bring those responsible to justice.
"A year ago, the International Group for the Coordination of Assistance to the Victims of Flight PS752, consisting of Ukraine, Canada, Sweden and the United Kingdom, initiated proceedings within the framework of the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) against Iran for violating the 1944 Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago Convention)," the department reminded.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs notes that the proceedings are ongoing, and the next steps of the Coordination Group at the ICAO Council are expected in the coming months.
In addition, in October 2024, the Coordination Group also filed a Memorandum in the PS752 case at the International Court of Justice. Ukraine, Canada, Sweden and the United Kingdom supported this key document in the case with indisputable evidence of Iran's violation of the 1971 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation (Montreal Convention).
"Today, Iran continues to confirm its status as a murderer, providing military and political support to the Russian Federation in its armed aggression against Ukraine, and the deepened cooperation between the regimes in Moscow and Tehran poses a direct threat to Europe and the Middle East. Impunity for past crimes encourages Iran and Russia to commit new violations of international law. That is why achieving justice is so important," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine added.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry calls on the international community to unite for the sake of peace and security, including with regard to civilian aircraft flights, so that such disasters do not happen again in the future.
What is known about the downing of the UIA plane in Tehran
As a reminder, UIA's Boeing 737-800 flight Tehran-Kyiv was shot down on the morning of January 8, 2020, immediately after taking off from the airport of the Iranian capital. All 176 passengers and crew members on board the plane died in the crash. Most of the victims were Iranians and Canadians, but 11 of them were Ukrainian citizens.
The decryption of the black boxes of the Ukraine International Airlines plane shot down in Iran in January confirmed that the plane went down as a result of a missile strike and that it was in good working order at the time.
In February 2021, Canadian media reported that a secret recording from Iran indicated that the missile hit on the UIA plane could have been intentional.
On May 21, it became known that the Ontario Superior Court of Justice concluded that two missile strikes on a Ukrainian plane shortly after takeoff from the airport of the Iranian capital Tehran on January 8, 2020, "were intentional."
On November 21, 2021, a military court in Iran began considering the case of the downing of the UIA plane.
Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Sweden initiated arbitration proceedings over the downing of the passenger plane at the end of December 2022.
