Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and French President Emmanuel Macron agreed on Saturday that French specialists would help decode the black boxes of the Ukrainian plane that crashed in Iran, Zelenskiy’s office said.
Macron told Zelenskiy in a telephone call that France had started a formal procedure to launch an international investigation into the crash, Zelenskiy’s office said in a statement, adding that Macron had agreed to visit Kiev.
In a tweet Saturday morning, Zelenskiy said he was “grateful” for Macron’s “compassion & willingness to assist in a comprehensive and fair investigation” into the crash.
“Rapid truth-finding was possible thanks to the work of the Ukrainian expert group in Tehran and the assistance of international partners,” the tweet reads.
Earlier on Saturday, Iran announced that its military “unintentionally” shot down the jetliner, killing all 176 aboard, including 57 Canadians, after repeatedly denying it was responsible.
The statement from Iran’s military came Saturday morning and blamed “human error” for the shootdown.
-With files from Global News