MOSCOW: Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Russia is not seeking to use the investigation of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 for political purposes, Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency reported.
“I have no prejudice against who can deal with the issue. It is vital that our representatives be included in a corresponding group,” he said in an interview with International Affairs magazine posted on the Foreign Ministry’s website on Thursday.
“It is important to understand what is happening with the investigation. We seek to establish the truth,” he said.
Flight MH17 carrying 283 passengers and 15 crew from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed over Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region on July 17.
“It seems to us Russia is mostly interested in it [investigation]. We hope we’ll be able to complete the investigation in cooperation with Dutch and Malaysian partners with whom we maintained a substantive dialogue from the very beginning,” Ryabkov said.
The minister said he hoped investigators’ unique experience and knowledge in air tragedies and avoiding politicisation of the issue would help in investigation work.
“That is why Russia insisted corresponding provisions be included in the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2166 that provided a legal foundation for this work,” he said.--BERNAMA