February 26, 2021
The Canadian government is reviewing an audio recording in which a man believed to be Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif—discusses the possibility that the destruction one year ago of a Ukrainian passenger flight over Tehran might have been intentionally carried out by a foreign government, CBC News has reported.
The individual is heard saying there are a “thousand possibilities” to explain the downing of the jet, including a deliberate attack involving two or three “infiltrators” a scenario he said was “not at all unlikely.”
He is also heard saying the truth will never be revealed by the highest levels of Iran’s military. “There are reasons that they will never be revealed,” he says in Farsi. “They [the Pasdaran] won’t tell us, nor anyone else, because, if they do, it will open some doors into the defense systems of the country that will not be in the interest of the nation to publicly say.”
On January 8, 2020, the Pasdaran shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 in the skies over Tehran with two surface-to-air missiles, killing all 176 people aboard, including 138 with ties to Canada.
The voice believed to be Zarif’s does not explain why he thinks the Pasdaran would cover up evidence that foreign infiltrators fired the missiles evidence that would exculpate the Islamic Republic and the Pasdaran of the opprobrium now being heaped on them.
CBC News said it had listened to the recording of the private conversation, which took place in the months immediately following the shootdown, CBC said it had three people translate the recording from Farsi to English to capture nuances in the language.
CBC, Canada’s state-owned broadcaster, said the details of the conversation, and the identities of the others involved, were not being released due to concerns for the individuals’ safety.
Ralph Goodale, the prime minister’s special adviser on the shootdown, said the government is aware of the recording. Cana-da’s investigators obtained a copy in November, he said. He said the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Communications Security Establishment are evaluating the recording’s authenticity.
Iran originally denied any involvement in the aircraft’s destruction. Three days after the crash, and in the face of mounting evidence, the Pasdaran acknowledged “unintentionally” shooting down the plane. It blamed human error, saying it mistook the jetliner for an enemy missile in the aftermath of the American drone strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleymani.
In the recording, the man identified as Zarif refers more than once to compensation as a means to close “the issue” and says Iran wants to compensate victims’ families to prevent other countries from turning the disaster into “an international crime.”
Iran has proposed compensation of $150,000 for each of the victims’ families, but Canada rejected that offer. Goodale said Iran doesn’t have the right to offer compensation to victims’ families unilaterally.
