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BOEING 777 CRASH IN DONBASS

Netherlands demanded conversation with Lavrov to discuss MH17 crash "as ultimatum"

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova commented on the words of Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders

© TASS/Mikhail Pochuev

ASTANA, October 16 /TASS/. The Netherlands demanded a telephone conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to discuss a probe into the Boeing 777 crash in Ukraine on October 13 after the Dutch Safety Board had published its report. The Dutch have made no fresh attempts to establish a contact since then, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Friday commenting the words of Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders.

"The Dutch side demanded as an ultimatum a telephone conversation with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov within 15 minutes on the day the report was published. The minister was busy at that time because he already had previously planned meetings on his schedule," she said adding the ministry had received no more requests for the conversation.

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"During the past year, we have sent numerous invitations to Dutch experts to come to Moscow. But Amsterdam refused," the Russian diplomat went on to say. "Now they are trying to raise a scandal out of nothing. Nothing will come of it. We are going to curb any attempts to spread misinformation," Zakharova stressed.

"As for the mess which the Dutch foreign minister has mentioned, he may be talking about the absence of any coherent answers by the Dutch side to the numerous questions posed by the Russian side, some of which had been addressed to the Netherlands and to everybody linekd to the preparation of the Boeing crash report," Zakharova went on to say. She added it would be more appropriate to redirect the muddying water accusations to the Dutch side.

"We have received no coherent answer to our questions which were not just logical but were based on expert analysis," the Russian diplomat stressed

"I can say that Russia wants to establish the truth about what happened in the skies over Ukraine a year ago like no one else," Zakharova concluded.

Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders claimed on Friday that Russia was allegedly muddying the waters in connection with the Dutch Safety Board’s report.

Russia is intentionally trying to diminish the report’s role, the Dutch daily newspaper De Volkskrant quoted Koenders as saying. The Dutch foreign minister also said he had failed to get in touch with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

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Foreign policy Boeing 777 crash in Ukraine

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