TEHRAN (Tehran Times) — A senior Iranian diplomat leading the legal discussions on the Ukrainian plane crash has said that Iran agreed to pay $150,000 in compensation for each victim of the crash.

(Credit: Mehr News Agency)

Speaking after the third round of Iran-Ukraine talks in Kiev, Mohsen Baharvand said during these talks several aspects of the Ukrainian plane crash in Tehran were discussed.

He told Iran Press that a detailed legal discussion had taken place, and the Iranian court had jurisdiction to hear the case of the Ukrainian plane crash because it was inside Iran.

On 8 January 2020, an Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) Boeing 737-800 departing from Tehran in destination of Kiev was shot down shortly after takeoff by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). All 176 passengers and crew were killed. The Iranian government initially denied responsibility for the airplane’s destruction, but investigation by Western intelligence agencies and the general public revealed that the aircraft was shot down by two surface-to-air missiles. On 11 January, the Iranian government admitted that the military had indeed shot down the airliner, having mistaken it for a cruise missile.

The incident occurred during the 2019-2021 Persian Gulf crisis, five days after the United States Government authorised a drone strike that killed IRGC Major General Qasem Soleimani in retaliation for the 2019-20 attack on the United States embassy in Baghdad by Kata’ib Hezbollah, and hours after Iran launched missiles on U.S. bases in Iraq.