Zarif: Iran to send Ukrainian plane black box to France

Tehran, June 22, IRNA – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Monday that Iran will send the black box of the Ukrainian plane to France. Zarif made the remarks in a phone conversation with his Canadian counterpart François-Philippe Champagne. He added that the decision had earlier been made and it will be implemented soon. Zarif said that Iran is ready to solve legal issues, to compensate losses on the victims of the accident and to compensate for the Ukrainian plane losses but Ukraine has not introduced any delegation yet. On January 8, 2020, a Ukrainian Boeing 737 passenger plane was accidentally shot down by two Iranian missiles near Tehran. It happened after the US heightened tensions in Western Asia by assassinating Iran's anti-terrorist commander Lieutenant-General Qasem Soleimani on January 3, 2020, and Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) reacted to them by hitting the US' Ain al-Assad airbase in Iraq The commander of Aerospace Force of the IRGC Brigadier-General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh admitted full responsibility for the tragic air disaster.