Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne spoke to his Iranian counterpart late last night, and pushed for immediate access to the site of the fatal Ukraine International Airlines plane crash that left at least 63 Canadians dead.
The Kyiv-bound flight crashed Wednesday morning, minutes afer taking off from the Tehran airport, killing all 176 people aboard. Most of those travellers were connecting to Canada, according to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, including dozens of Canadian citizens. Those victims included entire families, academics, students and newlyweds.
According to the minister’s office, Champagne stressed to Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif “the need for Canadian officials to be quickly granted access to Iran to provide consular services, help with identification of the deceased and take part in the investigation of the crash.
“Minister Champagne also condemned Iranian strikes targeting bases in Iraq where coalition forces, including Canadians, are stationed,” notes the statement.
The rare phone call comes as reports out of Iran point to a fire on the Boeing aircraft immediately before it crashed southwest of Tehran. The initial findings by Iran’s civil aviation organization says witnesses both on the ground and in a passing aircraft flying at a higher altitude said the jet was on fire while still in the air.
However, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky says his government is considering several possible causes of the crash, which happened soon after Iran launched a ballistic missile attack on Iraqi bases housing U.S. soldiers.
His security council secretary, Oleksiy Danylov, said the possible causes Ukraine is looking at include a missile attack, a collision, an engine explosion or terrorism, adding Ukrainian investigators want to search the crash site for possible Russian missile debris.
Canadian officials said they wouldn’t comment about any potential causes.
During a news conference on Wednesday, Trudeau was asked if he could categorically say the crash was not shot down.
“I cannot. It is too early to speculate,” he said.
Difficulty repatriating Canadian air crash victims
The work of probing the cause of the crash and repatriating the bodies of the Canadians will likely be complicated by the fact Canada severed diplomatic ties with Iran years ago.
Under then prime minister Stephen Harper, the federal government cut ties with Iran in 2012. The Liberals pledged to re-engage with the country in 2015 but, to date, bilateral relations have not been renewed.
Thomas Juneau, a University of Ottawa expert on the Middle East, said another hampering factor is Iran does not recognize dual citizenship.
The government has already said many of the dead may have been Canadian-Iranians travelling on Iranian passports. In the view of the Iranian government, those individuals could be seen as Iranians, said Juneau.
Canadian consular cases are now handled by Turkey, while Italy represents Canada diplomatically in Tehran.
