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Ministers Say Tehran Won't Hand Over 'Damaged' Black Box of Downed Ukrainian
Plane

RFE/RL

   The black box of a Ukrainian passenger airliner mistakenly shot down
   over Iran last month is damaged and Iran will not hand it over to
   another country despite pressure for access, state media quoted top
   Iranian ministers as saying on Wednesday.

   Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last week that he had
   "impressed upon" Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif that a
   complete and independent investigation into the shooting down of the
   airliner had to be carried out.

   Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 was brought down after it
   took off from Tehran on January 8, killing everyone on board. The 176
   victims included 82 Iranian citizens and 63 Canadians, many of them of
   Iranian origin.

   The crash occurred with Iran's air-defense forces on high alert
   following an Iranian ballistic-missile attack a few hours earlier
   against U.S. forces in Iraq. The strikes came days after Iran's most
   prominent military commander, Qasem Soleimani, was killed in a U.S.
   drone strike in Baghdad.

   "We have a right to read the black box ourselves. We have a right to be
   present at any examination of the black box," Zarif said.

   "If we are supposed to give the black box to others for them to read it
   in our place then this is something we will definitely not do," he
   said.

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