Canada urges Iran to give access to downed Ukrainian airliner's black boxes

Canada's Foreign Minister on March 4 reportedly urged Iran to give access to the black boxes from the Ukrainian airliner that was shot down by the Iranian missile in January. Francois-Philippe Champagne during a press conference with his Ukrainian counterpart in Kiev demanded Iran to give access to the black boxes without any further delay. He further added that it has been more than 30 days since the accident which killed all 176 onboard, and any further delays will lead to Iran undermining the international law. 

Ukraine and Canada have repeatedly pressed Iran to hand over the black box flight recorders to Kiev or Paris, however, they still remain in Iran. Earlier this month, Canada had also urged Iran to send the black boxes to France so that the data could be analyzed, but Iran's civil authority said that it would keep working with other countries to investigate its downing of the passenger plane. 

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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had also said that Iran did not possess the ability to analyse the downloaded information and that is why the black boxes should be sent to France. However, Champagne hopes that Iran will choose the way of transparency this time and will send the black boxes to Canada.

Plane crash in Iran

All 176 people were killed after Iran mistakenly fired two short-range missiles on the morning of January 8 amid high tension between Tehran and Washington. Most of the citizens on board the Ukrainian flight were Iranians or dual citizens; 57 people among those killed were from Canada while 11 were from Ukraine.

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The downing of the plane was a mistake from the Iranian military side as the accident happened hours after Tehran had fired dozens of missiles on two Iraqi military bases that were hosting the US-led coalition forces. Tehran's missile attacks on US bases were retaliatory action after Washington killed Iran's top military commander Qassem Soleimani on January 3 in a drone attack near Baghdad airport in Iraq.

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