TEHRAN -- Iran said Friday that Canada is “not qualified” to apportion blame on Tehran for the crash of a Ukrainian Boeing passenger plane last year that killed 176 people.
“Canada is not qualified to present reports or to voice opinion on the issue of the crash of a Ukrainian airliner,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Mohsen Baharvand.
“The part of the Canadian report which criticizes Iran’s report on the issue in the technical aspect is baseless and unacceptable,” the official said.
Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) flight PS752 flying from Tehran to Kiev crashed on January 8, 2020, shortly after take-off with mostly Iranian citizens on board.
Three days later, the Iranian armed forces admitted having shot down the aircraft by mistake.
The official report by Canadian experts released Thursday acknowledged that forensic investigators had “found no evidence that the downing of Flight PS752 was premeditated”.
But Iran still “does not get off the hook in any way whatsoever”, Canadian Foreign Minister Marc Garneau told a press briefing.
Air defenses were on high alert as Tehran had just attacked U.S. military posts in Iraq in response to an American drone strike five days earlier in Baghdad that martyred top Iranian commander General Qassem Soleimani.
Despite admitting that the incident was not intentional, the Canadian government’s report went on to put the blame on Iranian civil and military authorities for causing “a dangerous situation” that led to the downing of the plane.
However, the report failed to mention the United States’ unprecedented assassination of Iran’s top anti-terror general in Baghdad on January 3, 2020, which in turn set in train a series of events that led to the downing of the plane.
Baharvand said the part of the report which criticized Iran’s final report on the incident is “technically baseless” and therefore “unacceptable” because Iran had sent the draft for comment to other countries, whose responses were included in the final report.
“Everyone should know that experts from the United States, Britain, and France, with whom we may have political differences, have kept their opinions in a professional manner and have commented positively on and appreciated the professional conduct of our country’s accident investigation team,” he said.
He pointed out that the incident was neither the first nor will it be the last plane crash in the world.
The senior diplomat also maintained that the world’s civilian aviation industry would be harmed if such acts of politicization by the Canadian government become the norm in the world.
“From a legal standpoint, they (Canada) lack any authority to conduct a unilateral or arbitrary report or comment on an air crash outside their jurisdiction,” Baharvand said.
“If this highly politicized and illegal behavior by Canada became the norm, all countries, even the civil aviation industry, would be the main victims.”
Back in March, Tehran published the final results of its investigation into the causes of the incident. In the report, Iran’s civil aviation agency again concluded that human error was behind the incident.
Baharvand pointed to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s threat to take Iran to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, saying such remarks are “immature” and are based on pressures from Canadian politicians.
“They tried to exploit the incident to create a status for themselves in the eyes of the public, but of course, they couldn’t,” he said.
The official said Iran has the evidence and is capable of defending itself in any court of justice.
“Of course, if Canada or any other interacts with Iran within the framework of law and mutual respect, as is the custom in diplomatic and international relations, they will receive Iran’s constructive response,” he added.