MOSCOW, October 14. /TASS/. The Netherlands’ call on Russia to cooperate on the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crash in eastern Ukraine in mid-July 2014 is strange now as Moscow was always ready to join the effort, Foreign Ministry’s official spokesperson Maria Zakharova has said.
"We regard the call of the Dutch PM as strange as we were ready to join the work and to cooperate from the very beginning," Zakharova told reporters on Wednesday.
Moscow was not allowed to participate in the investigation "under various pretexts." "It is also strange that after the publication of the Dutch report with the ready conclusions they need cooperation with Russia," she added.
"We invited the Dutch colleagues and their experts to arrive in Russia so that we could share our considerations but the colleagues refused to accept the invitation," Zakharova said.
"When the report has become the focus of everyone’s attention they say: Russia is not cooperating," the diplomat said.
Moscow has serious doubts that the true goal of the investigation is to establish the true causes of the crash and not to substantiate the earlier accusations, Zakharova said.
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Western mass media ignoring Russia’s comments on MH17 crash investigation
Western mass media outlets have surprisingly ignored Russia’s comments on the Dutch report on the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crash investigation in eastern Ukraine, Russia’s Foreign Ministry’s official spokesperson said.
The Euronews TV channel on Wednesday showed only Dutch PM Mark Rutte who called on Russia to cooperate. "The positions of all the sides were represented except for Russia. This is despite the fact that we published two commentaries," Maria Zakharova noted.
"We hope that everything we say will be covered by the TV channel in a constructive way," the diplomat said, adding: "We are open for cooperation. We were ready to join the effort from the very beginning."
On July 17, 2014, a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 passenger airliner on flight MH17 from the Dutch city of Amsterdam to the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur crashed in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board who were the citizens of 10 countries and most of them - 193 people - were Dutch nationals.
On Tuesday, the Dutch Security Council published the results of its probe into the MH17 crash in eastern Ukraine in mid-July 2014 and its results contradict the findings announced by the Russian antiaircraft missile system manufacturer Almaz-Antey.
According to a report presented by Dutch Security Council Chairman Tibbe Joustra, the Malaysian airliner was hit by a missile with the 9H314M warhead. Meanwhile, Almaz-Antey showed earlier on Tuesday that the Boeing was shot down by an older missile modification with different striking elements.
Almaz-Antey also confirmed the version that the fatal missile had been launched from the Zaroshchenskoye community controlled by the Ukrainian military and rejected the international commission’s version of the missile’s launch from Snezhnoye, a town that had been under militia’s control at that time.