Zarif:

Iranian Foreign Ministry Ready to Help Families of Plane Incident Victims

TEHRAN (defapress)- Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in a message expressed his ministry’s readiness to help families of the victims of the Ukrainian passenger plane incident.

News ID: 79871

Date: 12 January 2020 - 15:27

“My colleagues in the foreign ministry—and in embassies, missions and consulates worldwide—share the nation’s grief in the aftermath of the tragedy and stand ready to offer any needed assistance to the families of the victims,” Zarif wrote on his Twitter account.

Last Wednesday, a Boeing 737 passenger plane of the Ukrainian airlines crashed near Tehran minutes after it took off from Imam Khomeini International Airport.

All the 167 passengers and nine crew members were killed in the crash.

Earlier on Saturday, the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces said in a statement that Ukrainian Boeing 737 Plane has been shot down as a hostile object due to human error at a time of heightened US threats of war.

The statement said an expert investigation by the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces after the Ukrainian airline company's Boeing 737 incident has found that flight 752 of the Ukrainian airlines has been shot down as a hostile flying object that was approaching a sensitive IRGC center and was shot down due to human error few hours after Iran's missile attack on the US and as Iran's military was expecting attacks by the US army.

"Following threats by the criminal US president and military commanders to strike a large number of targets on the Islamic Republic of Iran's territory in case of an Iranian attack and due to the unprecedented aerial movements in the region, the Islamic Republic of Iran's Armed Forces were on highest levels of alert to respond to any possible threats," the statement said.

"In the early hours after the missile attack, military flights of the US terrorist forces increased around the country and defense units received some reports about flying objects that were moving towards the country's strategic centers as several targets appeared on radar screens which made the air defense units more sensitive," it added.

"Under such sensitive and critical circumstances, flight number 752 of the Ukrainian airline company left Imam Khomeini airport and then approached a sensitive military center after a turn, positioning itself at the altitude and form of a hostile flight and was hit because of a human error and unintentionally under such conditions, and as a result a number of our country men and women and some foreign citizens lost their lives," it added.

The statement extended the Iranian Armed Forces' apology and condolences to the families of the victims for the incident resulting from human error, and ensured prosecution of those guilty.

The Armed Forces also ensured that it will immediately start fundamental revisions and reforms in operational procedures to make such human errors impossible.

A Boeing 737 plane carrying 180 passengers and crew, mostly Iranians, crashed shortly after takeoff from Imam Khomeini Airport in Tehran early Wednesday, leaving no survivors.

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