Iran will not compensate Ukraine International Airlines for its plane downed in January because the passenger jet was insured by European companies, the head of Iran’s Central Insurance Organisation, Gholamreza Soleimani, said on Monday.
“The Ukrainian plane is insured by European companies in Ukraine and not by Iranian (insurance) companies. Therefore, compensation should be paid by those European companies,” he said, Reuters reported.
At the same time, Soleimani’s comments concerned the aircraft and did not address potential compensation for victims’ families.
Earlier, an official representative of the Iranian Foreign Ministry said that Tehran agreed to pay compensation to Ukraine for the UIA plane downed in January. "Iran agreed to pay compensation for the plane, but the implementation of this issue takes time and has different aspects from technical and legal points of view," the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) quoted the diplomat as saying.
On January 8, 2020, Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 was shot down near Tehran by an Iranian surface-to-air missile, killing 176 people, including nine crew members (all Ukrainians) and 167 passengers (citizens of Ukraine, Iran, Canada, Sweden, Afghanistan, Germany, and the UK).
On July 18, France's Civil Aviation Safety Investigation Authority (BEA) received Flight PS752’s recorders from Iran.
On July 24, Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine Yevhenii Yenin informed that the transcript from Flight PS752’s recorders had confirmed illegal interference with the plane.
On July 30, Iran’s delegation arrived in Kyiv to participate in talks on compensation for the downing of UIA flight PS752.
On July 31, the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine informed that the next round of Ukraine-Iran talks on the investigation into PS752 flight crash was scheduled for October.