First round talks have now concluded between Ukraine and Iran, over the downing of a Ukrainian airliner in Tehran in January, with Ukrainian officials labelling the initial talks as “constructive”.
However, Ukraine has not yet ruled out the possibility of taking Iran to international courts over the incident, renewing its determination to “bring Iran to justice”.
“The talks ended late last night. The talks lasted 11 hours. In general, they were constructive,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a press meeting, following the initial discussion with Iran.
Kuleba noted that both sides had agreed to the terms of the next round of discussions, due to take place in October, however he said that Ukraine has no intention to drag out the negotiation process too long.
He also stated that Ukraine would not hesitate to escalate the matter to international courts, should no appropriate deal be made.
“Of course, if the negotiations with Iran are unsuccessful, then we will go to international courts and I have absolutely no doubt that we will bring Iran to justice. But this is plan B,” Kuleba said.
“And plan A is negotiations with Iran and the solution of all these issues and the payment of compensation. We saw Iran was disposed to a serious and substantive conversation,” he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said back in February that the country was not satisfied with the size of compensation initially offered by Iran to the families of the Ukrainians killed in the incident.
Kuleba said that he would also be pushing for maximum compensation for the affected families.
All 176 passengers and crew onboard the Ukrainian International Airlines Boeing 737 airliner were killed, after Iran allegedly mistook the plane for a missile, during a period of heightened tensions between them and the United States back in January.
Investigations into the incident, including probes into black box and flight recorder data are still being undertaken by a collective of international aviation bodies, in conjunction with Iranian and Ukrainian authorities.
Last week, preliminary data taken from the flight recorders confirmed that “illegal interference” played a part in the downing of the plane.
