russian-use-of-its-drones-proven-a79180
Iran's foreign minister said Monday that Tehran would not remain "indifferent" if it becomes evident Russia is using Iranian-made drones in Ukraine.
His remarks came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia ordered around 2,000 drones from Iran, the same kind that Kyiv says Moscow has been using in its recent attacks against Ukraine.
"During the war in Ukraine... we are against arming both Russia and Ukraine," Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in video remarks published by local media.
"We have not supplied Russia with any weapons or drones for use in the war against Ukraine," he continued, reiterating previous denials whilst acknowledging that the two countries have defence cooperation.
Iran's top diplomat reaffirmed his country's willingness to hold direct talks with Ukraine on the matter, and said that he conveyed this to European foreign policy chief Josep Borrell in the past days.
"I stressed to Mr Borrell that if... it becomes clear to us that Russia has used Iranian drones in the war against Ukraine, we will definitely not be indifferent about this issue."
Kyiv and its Western allies have repeatedly accused Moscow of using Iranian-made drones in attacks on Ukraine in recent weeks.
Iran has previously rejected allegations that it has supplied Russia with weapons "to be used" in Ukraine, while the Kremlin said Western countries aim to "pressure" Tehran.
Earlier on Monday, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani rejected US allegations that Iranian military personnel are on the ground in Russian-occupied Crimea to help Moscow carry out drone attacks in Ukraine.
"We strongly reject this news," Kanani said in a press conference.
The claim by Washington "aims to deviate public opinion from the destructive role they have in the Ukraine war by standing on one side of the conflict and heavily exporting weapons and equipment to Ukraine," he added.
On Thursday, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Iranian forces are "on the ground in Crimea" to assist Russia in its operations, adding that the personnel are trainers and tech support workers.
Kirby said "Tehran is now directly engaged on the ground, and through the provision of weapons that are impacting civilians and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine".
The United States, alongside Britain and the European Union, have already imposed sanctions on Iran over the issue of drones.
Last month, Kyiv decided to significantly reduce its diplomatic relations with Tehran over alleged arms deliveries to Moscow.
END
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/09/video/iran-plane-missile.html
Video Shows Ukrainian Plane Being Hit Over Iran
The New York Times has obtained video of the moment a Ukrainian airliner was hit minutes after takeoff from Tehran.
Video verified by The New York Times appears to show an Iranian missile hitting a plane near Tehran’s airport, the area where a Ukrainian jet crashed on Wednesday, killing all 176 people on board.
As investigators work to determine an official cause of the accident, the video offered new clues about the crash, which came hours after a violent confrontation between Iran and the United States. American and allied officials on Thursday said they believed an Iranian missile had accidentally brought the plane down.
A small explosion occurred when what appears to be a missile hit the plane above Parand, a city near the airport, but the plane did not explode, the video showed. The jet continued flying for several minutes and turned back toward the airport, The Times has determined. The plane, which by then had stopped transmitting its signal, flew toward the airport ablaze before it exploded and crashed quickly, other videos verified by The Times showed.
TEHRAN
4 Video from this area showed the plane
heading in the direction of the airport
before it crashed.
3 Video from this area appeared
to show the plane being hit.
Site of crash
2 The last signal was received
two minutes after takeoff.
1 Flight 752 departed
at 6:12 a.m.
Imam Khomeini
International Airport
Sources: Flightradar24, OpenStreetMap, Google | Note: Times are in local time.
By Lauren Leatherby and Anjali Singhvi
Visual and sonic clues in the footage also matched flight path information and satellite imagery of the area near where the plane crashed. The satellite images were taken on Thursday and provided to The Times by Maxar Technologies, a space technology company.
In the video, approximately 10 seconds pass between the flash of impact of what is believed to be a missile and the sound of the explosion reaching the camera. The sound delay indicates the plane was a little over two miles from the camera at the time of impact. That distance lines up with the path of the Ukraine International Airlines flight, as recorded by the flight tracking company FlightRadar24.
Ukraine rejects Iran's final report on downing of flight PS752 - Ukraine has rejected the Civil Aviation Organisation of Iran's final report on the downing of a Ukrainian jet as a "cynical attempt" to conceal the truth.
REUTERSUkraine has rejected the Civil Aviation Organisation of Iran's final report on the downing of a Ukrainian jet as a "cynical attempt" to conceal the truth.
Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 was hit by two missiles after taking off from Tehran on 8 January 2020. All 176 people on board died.
The CAOI's report blames errors by an air defence unit for the tragedy.
It says an operator "misidentified" the plane as hostile and fired the missiles without authorisation from a commander.
In a video posted on Facebook following the report's publication, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called the Iranian investigation "biased", the evidence presented "selective", and the conclusions "deceptive".
"The document does not present all the circumstances, does not reveal the root causes of the tragedy or the chain of actions that led to it. This is not a report, it is a collection of manipulations, the goal of which is not to establish the truth, but to whitewash the Islamic Republic of Iran," he said.
Ukraine and four other countries whose citizens or residents were killed - Canada, the UK, Afghanistan and Sweden - have demanded Iran provide a complete and thorough explanation of what happened.
For the first three days after flight PS752 crashed, Iran's armed forces denied any responsibility and the CAOI suggested there had been a technical failure. Authorities also allowed the crash site to be looted and then bulldozed.
But as evidence mounted, the Revolutionary Guards' Aerospace Force said an air defence unit had mistaken the Boeing 737-800 for a US missile.
THIS IS RELATED TO https://ausertimes.blogspot.com/2022/10/mr-hossein-amir-abdollahian-was.html
No comments:
Post a Comment