MH17: Russia willing to find compromise on international tribunal

Russia is seeking a compromise despite its resistance against the establishment of the international criminal tribunal against those responsible for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.

Its ambassador to Malaysia Valery N Yermolov stressed that the current push for the tribunal by Malaysia and four other countries in the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) did not fulfil the basis of UN Security Council Resolution 2166.

"We consider the issue of establishing an international tribunal concerning the MH17 catastrophe to be premature and counterproductive," said Yermolov at a press conference here, Friday.

However, they were prepared to conciliate differences with Malaysia as he claimed that the country had acknowledged willingness to seek other options.

"Our Malaysian friends... expressed their readiness to seek other options, unlike some other members of JIT," he said.

Yermolov, however, refused to divulge what the changes were, insisting that they were "confidential".

It was reported that Malaysia would push for the resolution at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) with the backing of four countries in the JIT - the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium and Ukraine - who took the stand that only an international tribunal would be able to ensure justice.

However, Russia, a veto power-wielding permanent member of the UNSC, strongly opposes the draft resolution, claiming that this was used as an elaborate excuse to bring Russia to trial.

"Some members of the JIT seem to have decided beforehand who is responsible for the incident without any solid evidence and without fulfilling the UN Security Council Resolution 2166," said Yermolov.

He also lamented the lack of transparency from the investigation team, citing an example of the Ukrainian air controller's recording on the day of the incident, which was not presented to them.

"We also asked for them to present records and the list of weapons possessed by the Ukrainians and the so-called Russian separatists, but we received nothing.

"We also asked the United States to present satellite pictures as we know that they are monitoring the area, but we got nothing," he said.

He also insisted that Russia would wait for the final results of the investigation into the MH17 crash, scheduled to be released in October, before launching initiatives to create a tribunal.

The Boeing 777 aircraft was downed over the territory held by pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine a year ago. All 298 people on MH17 – the majority of them Dutch – were killed.

Kiev and the West have pointed fingers at Russian separatists, saying they might have used a BUK surface-to-air missile supplied by Russia to shoot down the plane.

Moscow has denied any involvement and accused Ukraine's military instead.

It is learnt that the resolution, initially scheduled to be tabled on Wednesday, was being re-worked due to the Kremlin's resistance.

Russia had come up with its own draft resolution and the challenge was to find "any common ground" in it.

When asked, Yermolov said the common ground should follow UNSC Resolution 2166, without elaborating further.