Boeing shot down: Ottawa and Stockholm discuss compensation for victims

Canada announced Thursday an agreement to launch negotiations with Iran on compensation for the families of foreign victims of the Ukrainian Boeing that was shot down in January, with Sweden expressing confidence that Tehran would pay. The "coordination group" of countries whose nationals died in the crash of flight PS752 last January (Canada, United Kingdom, Ukraine, Sweden and Afghanistan), signed a "memorandum of understanding" formally paving the way for negotiations with Tehran, according to an Ottawa press release.

"The five states have created the legal structure necessary to start these negotiations," Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs François-Philippe Champagne told AFP. "It is a first step, necessary but it is only a first step, to start negotiations to obtain reparations for the families of the victims," he stressed.

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A few hours earlier, the Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs Ann Linde had for her part told the Swedish agency TT that Tehran had agreed to compensate the families of the foreign victims of the Boeing accidentally shot down by Iran on January 8. "There is no doubt that Tehran will pay," she said. "However, we do not know how much it will be, the negotiations must clarify it." "We have signed an agreement in principle that we will negotiate with Iran on compensation for the relatives of the victims," said the minister.

Ukraine, designated spokesperson for the coordination group for these negotiations, will be responsible for proposing a date in Tehran for the launch of the talks, François-Philippe Champagne said. "These kinds of negotiations generally take several months or even years," said the head of Canadian diplomacy, whose country chairs this coordination group. “Iran had indicated to us its desire to start negotiations. I still judge Iran not by its words but by its actions, " he warned.

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The 176 victims of this tragedy were mainly Iranian Canadians, but also Afghans, British and Swedes as well as eleven Ukrainians. Canada was the hardest hit, with a total of 85 victims (Canadian citizens and permanent residents). At the end of June, Iran officially requested the assistance of the Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA) in the recovery of data from the device's black boxes, announced the French body, internationally recognized for its expertise in matter. Ottawa has been demanding for months that Iran, which does not have the technical means to extract and decrypt data from black boxes, send them abroad for analysis.

The Iranian armed forces admitted on January 11 that they had “ three times earlier ” shot down the aircraft that had just taken off from Tehran for Kiev. Iran's air defenses were on high alert after the Islamic Republic fired missiles at an Iraqi base housing American soldiers to avenge the powerful Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, killed in an American drone strike in Baghdad a few days before.

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