Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said Friday his country wanted to know facts about the crash of its jetliner near Tehran after several nations pointed the finger at Iran.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo became the latest senior official to say that the Ukrainian jet was likely downed by an Iranian missile, after Canadian, Australian and UK leaders voiced similar conclusions.
“We have many reasons to be fair in our investigation. First, we want to establish the truth … What we really want is to know the result of the examination on the ground,” Prystaiko said during a press briefing.
He added that Ukraine would not make any conclusions until it saw the “black boxes,” which record cockpit and flight data. He stressed the decision not to talk about the missile strike theory was not political.
Ukraine also examined the Boeing’s flight path and determined that it was “100 percent correct,” Prystaiko told reporters.
The Ukraine International Airlines flight crashed shortly after taking off from Tehran on Wednesday, killing all 176 people on board. Iran suspects a technical issue brought it down. The chief of Iran’s civil aviation authority said the plane had been on fire when it came down.
(Sputnik News Service)
