In the wake of an Ontario court ruling this week that awarded $83.8 million USD plus interest to the families of six people who died when Iran shot down a Ukrainian commercial airliner in January 2020, Canada along with the UK, Ukraine and Sweden announced on Thursday they had given up their attempts to work out reparations directly with Tehran.
The four nations said they would instead use international law to enable reparations for family members, Reuters reported.
The majority of the 176 people who died when Iran shot down the passenger jet were citizens from the four countries, who have been working as a “coordination group” to ensure Iran is held accountable for the incident.
“Despite our best efforts over the past two years and multiple attempts to resolve this matter through negotiations, the coordination group has determined that further attempts to negotiate with Iran … are futile,” the four nations said in a statement.
“The coordination group will now focus on subsequent actions to take to resolve this matter in accordance with international law,” they added.
Tehran has blamed the shooting down of the plane by the Revolutionary Guards on an error made by a defense operator and a faulty radar system.
A Zoom news conference held by lawyers and family members of the victims after the Ontario court’s ruling was interrupted by hackers who flooded the screen with heavy metal music and obscene images forcing the meeting to end. The attack came just at the moment when a lawyer representing the families called on Iran to cooperate with the reparations the Ontario court had awarded.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)