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News ID: 75282
Publish Date : 19 January 2020 - 22:18

Official: Black Boxes Being Analyzed Inside Iran

TEHRAN/KIEV (Dispatches) – Iran is trying to analyze the black boxes of a Ukrainian airliner that was shot down in error this month, the IRNA news agency reported on Sunday, denying a report that a decision had been taken to send the plane’s recorders to Ukraine.
"We are trying to read the black boxes here in Iran. Otherwise, our options are Ukraine and France, but no decision has been taken so far to send them to another country,” Hassan Rezaifar, a director in charge of accident investigations at Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization, told IRNA.
The Boeing 737-800 was en route from Tehran to the Ukrainian capital when it was shot down on January 9. Most of the 179 people on board were Iranians.
The military has said it downed Ukraine International Airlines flight 752 in error at a time of high alert against possible U.S. aggression after Washington’s terrorist assassination of top Iranian military commander General Qassem Soleimani.  
The bodies of 11 Ukrainian victims were arrived in Kiev Sunday for a farewell ceremony. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said that "bereaved families and the whole nation have an opportunity to pay their respects”.
The bodies were brought to Kyiv’s Boryspil Airport aboard a Ukrainian air force plane. An honor guard solemnly carried the coffins into the airport terminal, where a farewell observance is to last until the evening.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has called the downing an "unforgivable error” and promised to hold those responsible to account. The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has also been effusive in offering apologies.
However, a few hundred people took advantage of the mistake to hold a protest in a downtown street in Tehran, which was bizarrely attended by the British ambassador.
The protest, during which a poster of Gen. Soleimani was torn up, came as Iranians were taking some solace in the country’s retaliation after several missiles pounded two American military bases in Iraq.  
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said on Friday that some tried to use it as an excuse to overshadow the participation of tens of millions of Iranians in rallies to mourn the martyrdom Gen. Soleimani.