OTTAWA- On Friday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau insisted that Iran send the black boxes of the plane shot down by Iran’s forces to France for analysis. He also urged Iran that the first remains of the victims must soon arrive in Canada.
France is one of the few countries which can read cockpit and flight data recorders from the jet, according to Trudeau.
Iran claims that the Ukrainian International Airlines flight carrying 176 people was shot down by accident. 57 of the 176 people on board were Canadian citizens.
Iran does not possess the technical expertise and equipment needed to analyse the damaged black boxes quickly. France seems to be the right place to get proper information quickly and that is why Canada is trying to pressure Iranian authorities to agree to send the black boxes there.
Iran says that international authorities are looking into the tragedy and accessing black box data would allow them to do so but it is yet to happen, slowing down the investigation.
Over 2/3rds of Canadians are unconvinced that a full accurate disaster account shall happen.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif held a rare face-to-face meeting on Friday in Muscat, Oman with Francois-Philippe Champagne, his Canadian counterpart. There have been no diplomatic relations between the two countries since 2012.
Zarif agreed that a “transparent analysis of black box data” is needed and they discussed the duty that Iran has towards the victims’ families, especially in terms of compensation.
Trudeau’s government is going to provide C$25,000 as immediate aid to the victims’ families and added that Canada expects Iran to compensate too.
20 of the families requested bodies to be returned and Trudeau expects the remains to be repatriated soon.
(Photos syndicated via Reuters)
This story has been edited by BH staff and is published from a syndicated field
