MOSCOW, August 7 (RIA Novosti) — NATO has no plans of sending its forces to guard the crash site of the Malaysian Boeing in eastern Ukraine, the alliance’s secretary general said Thursday.
When asked by a reporter in Kiev whether he saw any role for NATO in securing the MH17 crash site, Anders Fogh Rasmussen replied: "No, and we haven’t received any request in that respect."
In a recent interview with the French Midi Libre newspaper, the Secretary General claimed that he had evidence of independence supporters being responsible for the crash, although the alliance was not participating in the investigation into the causes of the crash.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed in eastern Ukraine on July 17. All 298 people on board, including 85 children, died in the crash. Kiev authorities and independence supporters have been trading blame for the downing of the plane, with independence supporters insisting they lacked the technology to shoot down a target flying at such a height.
The crash site has been visited by international experts and monitors several times in the past weeks, but the visits were constantly interrupted by shelling in the region, where Kiev has been conducting a military crackdown on independence supporters since mid-April.
