DIranian President Hassan Rohani officially asked Ukraine to apologize for accidentally killing a passenger plane by telephone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj. “Admitting the ‘missile version’ as the cause of the disaster has opened the way for the investigation to continue without delays and disabilities,” said Selenskyj on Saturday. Kiev will send an official note to Tehran, among other things, with compensation claims.
Rohani assured that all culprits would be held responsible for the Iranian military’s mistake and could face legal consequences. “We will comply with our legal obligations in every respect,” said the Iranian Presidential Office. According to Selenskyj, the dead should be returned to Ukraine in the coming week. Tehran has pledged to make this possible.
On Saturday, the Iranian revolution guards took responsibility for shooting down a Ukrainian passenger plane that left 176 dead. The Air Force commander of the Revolutionary Guard, Amir Ali Hajisadeh, said the airliner was mistaken for a cruise missile, in a statement sent on television. He blamed the shooting for the United States, which would have exacerbated tensions with Iran.
Iran was on high alert given the United States’ threats to attack 52 targets and expected war to break out. Against this background, an air force soldier believed the passenger plane to be an American attack.
“I wish I was dead myself”
“The disaster occurred after a communication defect, which is still not a justification and unforgivable,” said Hajisadeh. The officer in charge wanted to report the danger to the headquarters, but at that point there was a defect in the communication system. According to Hajisadeh, the officer had only a few seconds to decide whether to fire an anti-aircraft missile or not. “And unfortunately he did, which led to the accident,” said the commander.
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“When I found out about it, I wished I was dead myself instead of witnessing this accident,” said Hajisadeh. As head of the air and space division, he bears full responsibility and is prepared to bear all the consequences.
Hajisadeh defended the civil aviation authority, which had denied the launch for days. “It is not their fault because they saw the whole thing from a technical point of view and knew nothing about the process,” said the commander. In his opinion, however, there should have been a flight ban nationwide that day because the country was in a kind of war situation.
After the admission of the shooting by Iran, the Ukrainian president asked Tehran to hold the guilty responsible and to pay compensation. He expected a full admission of guilt and an official apology through diplomatic channels. In addition, the remains of the victims should be transferred to their home countries. The investigation into the crash should “continue without deliberate delays and obstacles,” he wrote. Specialists from Ukraine should continue to have full access to possible evidence.
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