SYDNEY, July 17. /TASS/. Australia and the Netherlands hope to open dialogue with Russia on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crash over eastern Ukraine, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said in a statement on the fourth anniversary of the crash on Tuesday.

"This year the JIT [Joint Investigation Team] released further significant findings from its criminal investigation, including that the missile system used to down MH17 belonged to the Russian army," the statement reads. "On May 25, 2018, Australia and the Netherlands announced that we hold Russia responsible for its role in the downing. We hope that through negotiations with Russia we can open dialogue around the circumstances leading to the tragic loss of innocent lives," Bishop added.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, in turn, said in an interview with the 3AW radio station that he did not trust Moscow’s statements about not being involved in the downing of flight MH17. "I certainly don't trust President Putin when he said he wasn't responsible for the shooting down of MH17, which was four years ago today," he said.

MH17 crash

The Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, a Boeing-777 passenger plane travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down on July 17, 2014, over Ukraine’s eastern region of Donetsk. The crash killed all the 283 passengers and 15 crewmembers. There were nationals of ten states among the dead.

The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) looking into the crash comprises representatives of the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and Ukraine.

On May 24, the team gave an update of the state of affairs in the criminal investigation, claiming that "the BUK-TELAR that was used to down MH17, originates from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile brigade (hereinafter 53rd brigade), a unit of the Russian army from Kursk in the Russian Federation."

Russia’s Defense Ministry rejected all the allegations and said that none of the missile systems belonging to the Russian Armed Forces had ever been taken abroad. The ministry noted that Moscow had provided Dutch investigators with overwhelming evidence proving that a Ukrainian Buk missile system had been used to bring down the aircraft.