UNITED NATIONS, July 21 (RIA Novosti) - The UN Security Council on Monday strongly condemned the downing of a Malaysian passenger plane in eastern Ukraine and unanimously voted in support of a thorough and independent international investigation of the incident.
Australia and Russia have submitted their draft resolutions on the issue. The Council held a closed-doors meeting earlier in the day seeking to draft a mutually acceptable text of the document.
The 15-member council said in a resolution it “supports efforts to establish a full, thorough and independent international investigation into the incident in accordance with international civil aviation guidelines.
The council also demanded that “the armed groups in control of the crash site and the surrounding area provide safe, secure, full and unrestricted access to the site and surrounding area for the appropriate investigating authorities, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission and representatives of other relevant international organizations according to ICAO and other established procedures.”
The resolution “demands that all military activities, including by armed groups, be immediately ceased in the immediate area surrounding the crash site to allow for security and safety of the international investigation.”
The United Nations’ most powerful body calls on all states and actors in the region to “cooperate fully in relation to the international investigation of the incident, including with respect to immediate and unrestricted access to the crash site.”
The resolution “demands that those responsible for this incident be held to account and that all States cooperate fully with efforts to establish accountability.”
The council welcomes the July 17 statement by the trilateral contact group of senior representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE and demands that the commitments outlined in that statement be implemented in full.
Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 airliner en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed near Donetsk on July 17. All 298 people on board the airliner died, including 283 passengers and 15 crew members.
