Russian Federation is willing to work with Malaysia on different approaches on finding the truth over those responsible for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, in spite of its resistance to the establishment of the global criminal tribunal.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin described as premature and counterproductive a draft resolution which Malaysia circulated this month.
He also claimed that the probe had not complied with UNSC resolution 2166, adopted last year, which expressed support for the “efforts to establish a full, thorough and independent worldwide investigation into the incident” in accordance with ICAO guidelines.
“This is not a proper thing for the Security Council to do because it’s not a case of a threat to global peace and security”, he said in a telephone interview.
Russia’s draft resolution, which called for the UN and the worldwide Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) to play a greater role in the crash investigation, was designed to counter another draft resolution proposed by Malaysia and four other countries to set up the global tribunal.
The Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 MH17, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala-Lumpur, crashed in east of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, the armed resistance zone, on July 17, 2014. All 298 people on MH17 – the majority of them Dutch – were killed. But Moscow has rejected accusations it supplied the rebels with SA-11 Buk anti-aircraft missile systems.
Churkin said he had not received definitive instructions from Moscow on how to vote on Wednesday but commented: “I have a very strong feeling that it’s not going to lead to a result that will be satisfactory for the Security Council”.
“We are against it”, Churkin said.
It was reported that Malaysia would push for the resolution at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) with the backing of four countries in the JIT – the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium and Ukraine – who took the stand that only an global tribunal would be able to ensure justice.
However, Russia, a veto power-wielding permanent member of the Security Council, strongly opposed the draft resolution, claiming that this was used as an elaborate excuse to bring Russia to trial.
Several council diplomats said they expected Russian Federation to exercise its veto.
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Led by the Dutch, those countries are conducting a criminal inquiry in the downing of MH17. Separately, a final report on the cause of the crash is due in October from the Dutch Safety Board.
