Anniversary of UIA Flight 752 tragedy: why Iran refuses to recognize responsibility

Hennadiy Dubov, political scientist and PhD in law, explained what this is about on Espreso TV.

"Today we cannot talk about the possibility of achieving justice. This is because Iran refuses to agree to arbitration in accordance with international conventions, which would have to award the appropriate amounts of compensation. That is, Iran does not want to agree to a mechanism that is likely to impose much greater obligations on it than it considers possible. The Iranian delegation announced its readiness to pay compensation to the families of those killed in the disaster in the amount of USD 150,000, but the families were refused," Dubov said.

According to him, today the situation is revolving around a dispute. In particular, it is being decided who will agree on and determine the amount of compensation for each life lost through the fault of the Iranian military.

"Iran does not agree to arbitration. UK, Canada, Sweden, Ukraine have appealed to the International Court of Justice. It is likely that in some time the International Court of Justice will be able to make a decision. If such a decision is not implemented, according to the UN court's charter, they must appeal to the UN Security Council to take appropriate actions and measures against Iran," he said.

The political scientist predicted what further developments could be.

"Iran has friends like Russia and China. Therefore, this is a long and difficult path. Unfortunately, international law does not have particularly functional mechanisms. However, there is another promising option. The lawsuits of Canada and the United States include frozen Iranian assets, including those that have been under suspension for many years. Accordingly, they can be used to recover funds from frozen assets based on decisions of Canadian and US courts. This practice was applied to Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia," he said.

There is no doubt that it was carried out by the Iranian military. Earlier, the Iranian authorities admitted that the UIA plane was shot down by their Tor air defense system. They have allegedly brought a number of people to criminal responsibility, including the commander of this unit, Dubov said.

"The head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' space forces once admitted that they did it, citing a mistake. They claimed that the situation was "nervous" because they expected strikes on Tehran from the United States. These events are related to the assassination of General Soleimani, which happened a little earlier and the bombing of American military bases," he added.

• The UIA plane was shot down on January 8, 2020, shortly after takeoff from Tehran by two surface-to-air missiles. As a result, all 176 people on board were killed.