TEHRAN - Deputy Foreign Minister for International and Legal Affairs Mohsen Baharvand said on Tuesday that an Iranian delegation is scheduled to visit Kiev on July 29-30 to hold talks over the Ukrainian plane incident in early January.

He told IRNA that the process of decoding the plane’s black boxes, which was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic, will be finished in two or three days.

He said representatives from other countries are present where the decoding is being done. However, Baharvand said, the Iranian representative plays the pivotal role.

Iran has sent the black box of the Ukrainian passenger plane to France for decoding.

Baharvand said the black box was taken to Paris on Friday and would be deciphered on Monday.

The Ukrainian airliner was shot down shortly after taking off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini airport on January 8, killing all 167 passengers and 9 crew members.

On January 11, the Armed Forces General Staff released a statement saying the Ukrainian passenger plane was mistakenly downed near the airport. 

The incident happened a few hours after Iran fired dozens of ballistic missiles at a U.S. airbase inside Iraq in retaliation for the assassination of top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani.

The airplane had been mistaken for an invading missile.

NA/PA