The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) will appoint a rapporteur on Russia's cooperation in the MH17 crash investigation during the October session, Tiny Kox, the chairperson of the PACE Group of the Unified European Left, told Sputnik on Monday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th September, 2019) The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) will appoint a rapporteur on Russia's cooperation in the MH17 crash investigation during the October session, Tiny Kox, the chairperson of the PACE Group of the Unified European Left, told Sputnik on Monday.Russia has repeatedly stressed its readiness to assist the probe in determining the reasons for the tragic 2014 crash and hold the perpetrators accountable. However, Moscow demands that the data it provides must be taken into account, unlike in 2016 when the Russian authorities responded promptly to the investigators' requests for help and shared secret data on the Buk missiles, which allegedly were used to down the plane, but the information was ignored.
According to Kox, the rapporteur initiative was proposed by the leaders of all PACE's political groups during the assembly's summer session.
The Malaysian Airlines Boeing airplane crashed on July 17, 2014, in eastern Ukraine while en route to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam. All 298 people aboard were killed. Kiev and the self-proclaimed republics in Ukraine's easternmost Donbas region, where the plane was shot down, have exchanged blame for the incident.
The investigation into the MH17 crash is being conducted by Dutch prosecutors and the Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT), which has accused Russia of instigating the attack. According to the JIT, Flight MH17 was brought down by a missile that came from the 53rd Anti-aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces, based near Russia's city of Kursk.
Moscow has repeatedly denied the JIT's accusations, saying that the claims were unfounded and the investigation was biased. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia has not been granted access to the investigation and that Moscow would be able to recognize its results only if given access to the probe.
