Iran fails to derail complaint to ICAO over downing of UIA plane in Tehran
Wreckage of the downed airliner in the suburbs of Tehran (Illustrative photo: wing.com.ua)
The Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has refused to consider Iran's complaint against the lawsuit filed by four countries whose citizens were killed in the downing of the Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) flight in January 2020, reports Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha on his X page.
According to him, Iran attempted to challenge the jurisdiction of the ICAO Council regarding the complaint over the downing of the civilian airliner.
"But the Council ruled in favor of Ukraine, Canada, Sweden, and the UK and moving the case to the merits. We will keep working together to hold Iran accountable," Sybiha stated.
UIA plane crash in Tehran
The passenger airliner Boeing 737-800 NG, operating flight PS752 from Tehran to Kyiv, crashed on January 8, 2020, shortly after takeoff.
There were 176 passengers on board, including citizens of Ukraine, Iran, Canada, Afghanistan, the UK, and Sweden. All of them perished.
Four days after the disaster, on January 11, the Iranian government officially admitted that an air defense operator had shot down the airliner with two missiles from a Tor-M1 surface-to-air missile system, mistakenly identifying it as a hostile target.
In 2020, the first round of negotiations with Iran took place. As a result, Tehran agreed to pay compensation to the families of the victims. However, in August of that year, the Iranian side refused to compensate for the cost of the downed aircraft.
At the beginning of 2022, Iran withdrew from further negotiations and announced its exit from the talks.
In January 2024, on the fourth anniversary of the tragedy, the governments of four countries initiated a dispute review at ICAO against Iran for the use of weapons against civilian aircraft.
