Moscow - Australia hopes to get security guarantees for its experts to visit the crash site of the Malaysian MH17 crash, Australian Ambassador to Russia Paul Myler said.
“We are still waiting. We are desperately keen to get to the site. Obviously we need the security and safety of our investigators to be provided for,” Myler told Interfax in an interview.
“[Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin said he would facilitate that. So far we haven’t been in a situation where we’ve deemed it safe. Clearly there is still shelling happening, pro-Russian separatists are still firing mortars and others in that region,” he said.
“We wait for safety and security,” he noted.
“Obviously if Russia has nothing to hide then we should be looking at everybody’s working as quickly as possible to provide a safe environment around the crash site so that the investigations can be concluded as quickly as possible,” Myler said.
Australia made the decision not to send experts to the crash independently, he said. “It’s our decision not to go. While shelling persists in this area we are not going to put our police in the situation where they can be potentially fired upon,” he said.
A Malaysian Airlines passenger Boeing flight MH17 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed in eastern Ukraine on July 17, killing all 298 people aboard. Nine crash victims remained unaccounted for as of Nov. 8. There were 38 Australians aboard the airplane.
The full text of the interview will appear at www.interfax.com
