Why does Iran refuse to negotiate compensation for the families of the victims of the "Ukrainian plane"?

Canada, Britain, Sweden and Ukraine denounced Iran's refusal to negotiate with it to pay compensation to the families of the victims of a passenger plane that was "mistakenly" shot down by Iranian air defenses nearly two years ago, with a missile targeting it shortly after taking off from Tehran on a flight to Kiev.

Canada, Britain, Sweden and Ukraine denounced on Wednesday Iran's refusal to negotiate with it to pay compensation to the families of the victims of a passenger plane that was shot down by Iranian air defenses "by mistake", nearly two years ago, with a missile targeting it shortly after taking off from Tehran on a flight to Kiev, in a disaster that killed 176 people.

"We express our deep disappointment that the Islamic Republic of Iran has not accepted our multiple requests for a meeting on November 22, 2021," the four countries said in a joint statement.

On January 8, 2020, a missile launched by the Iranian armed forces shot down a Boeing Ukraine Airlines flight PS752, shortly after take-off from Tehran bound for Kiev. Iran did not admit its responsibility for shooting down the plane until three days after the incident, stressing that the missile was launched "by mistake."The tragedy claimed the lives of all 176 people on board, including 55 Canadian citizens and 30 other permanent residents.

And when the tragedy occurred, Iranian air defenses were on high alert in the wake of the Iranian missile bombing of a US army base in Iraq, in response to Washington’s assassination five days earlier in Baghdad, the commander of the Quds Force in the Revolutionary Guards and the architect of Iran’s regional strategy, General Qassem Soleimani.

In their joint statement, the four countries added: "We remind the Islamic Republic of Iran that it must fulfill its international legal obligations to pay full compensation to the group of countries concerned, and therefore we reiterate our call for it to negotiate in good faith and to do so before the end of this year."

The new Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Jolie discussed with her British counterpart Liz Truss on Friday the commitment of their two countries to "seek justice while holding Iran accountable." The four countries warned that "we will have no other choice but to seriously consider other measures and measures to resolve this issue" if Tehran insists on its refusal to negotiate. On Sunday, the trial of ten soldiers began in Tehran in the case of shooting down the plane.

In a final report issued in March, the Iranian Civil Aviation Organization dismissed the Iranian armed forces’ responsibility for the disaster, a result that Ukraine saw at the time as a “flawed effort to conceal the true causes” of the disaster, and Canada denounced the report as “incomplete” and devoid of “concrete evidence.”