DUBAI — Iran confirmed in a report released Tuesday that two Russian-made antiaircraft missiles hit a Ukrainian airliner that was shot down on Jan. 8, killing all 176 aboard.
The report by Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization did not immediately say the Tor M-1 missiles caused the crash but only that “the impact of these missiles on the accident and the analysis of this action are under investigation.”
Russia announced the delivery of the Tor M-1 system — also known as SA-15 — to Iran in 2007.
Iran at first maintained that mechanical failure had brought the plane down with the head of aviation organization telling a news conference he was certain “no missiles hit the aircraft.” In the face of mounting evidence, however, the military admitted the next day that it was a case of human error by a missile crew that mistook the passenger plane for a hostile aircraft.
The report also requested help from U.S. and French authorities for equipment and know-how to recover information from Flight 752’s flight recorders, the “black boxes” that record the voices in the cockpit and the flight data.
Iran faces growing impatience from countries whose citizens were on the plane, particularly Canada and Ukraine, for access to the recorders. Iranian officials first said they would send them to Ukraine for analysis but then backtracked.
The plane was shot down on Jan. 8 during a tense confrontation between the United States and Iran following the killing of a top Iranian commander.
In retaliation for the killing of Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, Iran fired more than a dozen missiles at bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq. A few hours later, missiles from a Revolutionary Guard antiaircraft battery shot down the Ukrainian aircraft soon after it took off from Tehran.
The belated admission about the cause of the tragedy, which killed dozens of Iranian citizens and dual nationals, sparked anger in Iranian streets and days of protests that were brutally repressed.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif acknowledged that people were angry because they had been lied to by authorities.
Iran has said arrests were made over the incident but has provided no details.
A lawmaker from Soleimani’s hometown of Kerman, meanwhile, announced in parliament that he and his constituents would offer a $3 million reward for the killing of President Trump, the Iranian Students’ News Agency reported, according to Reuters. There was no indication that the announcement had any kind of official backing.
Lawmaker Ahmad Hamzeh also said that if Iran had nuclear weapons, it would be protected from external threats. Iran’s current dispute with the United States revolves in large part around long-standing suspicions that Iran could seek nuclear weapons.
Iran’s supreme leader has declared nuclear weapons forbidden by Islam, and the country pledged in a 2015 nuclear agreement “that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons.”
