Iran Dithering on Crash Probe, Says Ukraine Airline

Flowers and a memorial poster are placed outside the Iranian Embassy to commemorate the victims of the Ukraine International Airlines plane crash, in Kiev, Ukraine January 8, 2020. (Reuters)
Flowers and a memorial poster are placed outside the Iranian Embassy to commemorate the victims of the Ukraine International Airlines plane crash, in Kiev, Ukraine January 8, 2020. (Reuters)
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Iran Dithering on Crash Probe, Says Ukraine Airline

Flowers and a memorial poster are placed outside the Iranian Embassy to commemorate the victims of the Ukraine International Airlines plane crash, in Kiev, Ukraine January 8, 2020. (Reuters)
Flowers and a memorial poster are placed outside the Iranian Embassy to commemorate the victims of the Ukraine International Airlines plane crash, in Kiev, Ukraine January 8, 2020. (Reuters)

Iranian investigators probing the downing of a passenger plane a year ago are deliberately dragging their feet, Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) said on Wednesday.

Tehran has admitted its anti-air missiles brought down the plane by mistake on January 8 last year during heightened tension with the US, killing all 176 passengers and crew, including 55 Canadians.

"We haven't got an answer to the main question: how could this happen and who is responsible," UIA chief Yevhenii Dykhne told AFP, saying "the process isn't moving".

"The tactic on the Iranian side is to sweep under the rug, to drag their feet," he said.

"There needs to be more serious pressure from those countries whose citizens died."

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last month called on Iran to answer questions about the downed plane after an independent Canadian report complained that Iran was "investigating itself, largely in secret".

The report said Iran's probe suffered "obvious conflicts of interest... with few safeguards to ensure independence, impartiality or legitimacy".

Ukraine officials confirmed this week they had received on December 31 a preliminary "technical report" from Iran on the circumstances of the disaster.

They now have two months to review the document and decide if they are satisfied.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Wednesday blamed the "bitter event" on "the inhuman adventurism of the United States and its terrorist actions in the region".

The disaster came as Iranian forces were on high alert after the US assassination of revered Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in neighboring Iraq and a retaliatory Iranian rocket attack on US bases there.

In a statement, the Guards -- seen as Iran's ideological army -- called the deaths "very difficult and sad for everybody".

But they said the event "proved once again that the global arrogance (the US) has reached the height of vice and resentment against the republic and the people of Iran."

Tehran has offered to give $150,000 to the families of each of the victims.

But airline boss Dykhne joined widespread criticism of the offer, dismissing it as a "media strategy just designed to test our reaction".

Iran's government has not made an official proposal for payouts, he added, arguing that "international precedents" should be used to set the level of compensation.

In 1996, Washington agreed to pay a total of $61.8 million to the families of 290 people killed in an Iran Air plane shot down by a US warship in 1988.

And after its 2003 admission of responsibility for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing of a US-bound passenger plane, Libya paid $2.7 billion to the families of the 270 people killed.

Whatever the amounts, payouts should only follow technical and criminal inquiries into the deaths and a determination whether the shooting down of the plane was due to human error or a planned "military" act, Dykhne said.



Biden Defends Foreign Policy Record Despite Ongoing Crises

US President Joe Biden speaks at the State Department in Washington, DC, on January 13, 2025, as he delivers his final foreign policy speech. (AFP)
US President Joe Biden speaks at the State Department in Washington, DC, on January 13, 2025, as he delivers his final foreign policy speech. (AFP)
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Biden Defends Foreign Policy Record Despite Ongoing Crises

US President Joe Biden speaks at the State Department in Washington, DC, on January 13, 2025, as he delivers his final foreign policy speech. (AFP)
US President Joe Biden speaks at the State Department in Washington, DC, on January 13, 2025, as he delivers his final foreign policy speech. (AFP)

Outgoing President Joe Biden sought to burnish his foreign policy record on Monday and said US adversaries are weaker than when he took office four years ago despite global crises that remain unresolved.

A week before handing over to President-elect Donald Trump, Biden addressed US diplomats at the State Department and touted his administration's backing for Ukraine against Russia's 2022 invasion and for Israel's wars in the Middle East.

Biden said the United States was "winning the worldwide competition" and would not be surpassed economically by China as had been predicted, while Russia and Iran have been weakened by wars without direct US involvement.

"Compared to four years ago, America is stronger, our alliances are stronger, our adversaries and competitors are weaker," Biden said. "We have not gone to war to make these things happen."

While wars continue to rage in Ukraine and the Middle East, officials hope a deal between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas can be reached before Biden departs the White House on Jan. 20.

Biden said negotiators were close to reaching a deal that would free hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip and halt the fighting in the Palestinian enclave to allow a surge of humanitarian aid.

"So many innocent people have been killed, so many communities have been destroyed. Palestinian people deserve peace, a right to determine their own futures. Israel deserves peace and real security. The hostages and their families deserve to be reunited," Biden said. "And so we're working urgently to close this deal."

Biden has faced criticism for providing Israel with weapons and diplomatic support, since the latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed over 46,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while also drawing accusations of genocide in a World Court case brought by South Africa and of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court. Israel denies the allegations. The assault has displaced nearly Gaza's entire 2.3 million population and drawn the concern of the world’s main hunger monitor.

Protesters shouting “war criminal” greeted Biden outside the State Department on Monday, some with signs and some throwing red liquid intended to look like blood.

Biden said he had helped Israel defeat adversaries including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, both backed by Iran. The US president also hailed Washington's support for Israel during two Iranian attacks in 2024.

"All told, Iran is weaker than it's been in decades," he added, noting the collapse of the Syrian Assad government. "There's no question that our actions contributed significantly."

CHINA AND RUSSIA

Biden acknowledged that China, Iran, North Korea and Russia were now more closely aligned with one another, but he said that was more "out of weakness than out of strength."

Ukraine, with US backing, had thwarted Russian President Vladimir Putin's goal of wiping the country off the map, Biden said, touting his 2023 visit to Kyiv as the first by a sitting president to a war zone outside the control of US forces.

"When Putin invaded Ukraine, he thought he (could) conquer Kyiv in a matter of days. Truth is, since that war began, I'm the only one that stood in the center of Kyiv, not him," Biden said.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, writing on Telegram, said Biden's address amounted to an acknowledgement "that US support for Kyiv created the risk of triggering a nuclear confrontation with Russia."

"Today's statement by Biden is an admission of a deliberately executed provocation," Zakharova wrote. "The Biden administration knew it was pushing the world toward the brink and still chose to escalate the conflict."

Biden defended his decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan, saying there was nothing adversaries like China and Russia would have liked more than seeing the United States continue to be tied down there for another decade.

Biden said when he entered the White House, experts predicted it was inevitable that China would surpass the United States in economic terms. Now, he predicted, that will never happen. He said the US economy was moving forward, but there was still work to do.

"Now, make no mistake, there are serious challenges the United States must continue to deal with," Biden said, including in Ukraine, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific. He said the Biden administration was leaving the next administration "a very strong hand to play."