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Ukrainian president threatens to take Iran to international court over broken flight PS752 promises
pandemic​, Fars News Agency has reported the Iranian Association of Airlines as estimating.
The carriers were already haemorrhaging losses due to ongoing heavy US sanctions throttling operations.
Secretary of the Iranian Association of Airlines Masoud Asadi-Samani was cited as saying that there were presently three airlines in Iran with entirely grounded fleets due to the scrapping of domestic and international flights made necessary by efforts introduced by Iran and other countries in the battle against the pandemic.
“The number of air passengers reduced by 76% and flights by 90% during Nowruz [the Persian New Year] holidays [which ran from March 19-April 3], according to latest data released by Iran Airports Company,” he said. Revenues of Iranian airlines have dropped by a staggering 80% in recent weeks, with only a few flights going to international destinations including the UK, Turkey and Qatar.
According to Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport (IKIA), on April 5, only two flights were recorded on its rota, including a return service from London with IranAir.
President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelenskiy on June 22 threatened to take Iran to an international court if it does not fulfil its promises regarding investigations into downed Ukrainian International Airlines (UIA) flight PS752 jet, shot out of the sky just outside Tehran in early January.
Iran is seen by Ukraine has having persistently dragged its feet in investigating how it was that an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) missile gunner apparently came to shoot down the Boeing 737-800 aircraft, killing 176 people on board including women and children.
Zelenskiy emphasised in an interview with ​Canada’s Globe and Mail​ that Iran has not only failed to send the PS752 black box flight recorders to Ukraine, it has also not come good in meeting several other promises.
“They must apologise formally. They must pay adequate compensation..,” Zelenskiy added .
Zelinskiy conceded that some of the latest delays in Iran attending to issues with the investigations were caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis, though he added: “But this problem cannot wait forever... They must do what they promised.” Ukraine would soon have no other choice than to appeal to an international court.
The 176 victims included 82 Iranian citizens and 63 Canadians, many of them of Iranian origin.
Iran has repeatedly told international press in recent months that it would hand over the black boxes, but it has not done so.
On June 22, another commitment to send the flight recorders was made by Tehran. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in a phone call with his Canadian counterpart, Francois-Philippe Champagne, said according to his ministry that Iran would send them to France’s BEA air accident investigation agency for analysis in the "next few days" and expressed readiness to resolve the issue of compensation for the families of the victims. Champagne said that Zarif had committed to sending the flight recorders to France without further delay and that Iran had "agreed to enter into negotiations for reparations."
New information came to light in May suggesting that passengers aboard the flight were out of their seats before the missiles struck, adding further questions about the events which occurred that night.
Ukrainian forensics head Alexander Ruvin from the Kyiv Research Institute of Forensics ​suggested from evidence obtained​ that despite seatbelt instructions still applying as the plane was still not long after take-off, the passengers were
46​ IRAN Country Report July 2020 www.intellinews.com