Dutch Ambassador to be summoned by Russian Foreign Ministry over MH17 investigation
The Ambassador from the Netherlands to the Russian Federation will be summoned on October 3 to the Russian Foreign Ministry for “further explanation of the reasons for Russia’s rejection of the methods of work of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT).” On Friday, September 30, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said that according to her, the Dutch will not accept any criticism against the intermediate results of the investigation into the cause of the crash of the Malaysian Boeing 777 over eastern Ukraine in July 2014. The Russian Foreign Ministry believes that the JIT “is leading the investigation in the wrong direction,” and the results of its investigation “are insistently portrayed as the only true ones.”
Earlier on Friday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands summoned the Russian ambassador, Alexander Shulgin, after Russian authorities criticized the international investigation of the crash of the Malaysian Boeing 777. Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Bert Koenders said that Russia’s reaction casts doubt on the professionalism and independence of the experts that carried out the investigation. The statement by the Foreign Ministry stressed that it was made clear for the Russian ambassador that such unjustified criticism is unacceptable.
According to the Joint Investigation Team, the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 flying en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on July 17, 2014, was shot down by a rocket from the Russian Buk system from the ground in territory controlled by pro-Russian separatists. All 298 passengers and crew aboard the airliner were killed.