Reza Jafarzadeh said on Thursday, "We have already said that if it is possible to decrypt the black box of the Ukrainian plane in Iran, we will decrypt it in the presence of the representatives of the beneficiary countries."
"Otherwise, the black box will be decrypted in a third country in the presence of representatives of these countries," he added.
"The team of Iranian experts was scheduled to review the crash of the Ukrainian plane in the presence of representatives from France, Ukraine, Canada and other countries involved in the incident but the investigation was suspended since the beginning of coronavirus pandemic and the cancellation of the flights," he said.
Jafarzadeh went on to say, "We have no problem for decryption of the black box in another country."
"As soon as the conditions are prepared for the investigation, the black box will be decrypted in the presence of experts of Iran Civil Aviation Organization, otherwise the black box will be decrypted in France or Ukraine," he added.
Previously, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal Affairs Mohsen Baharvand voiced Iran's readiness for delivering the black box of Flight 752 to a French or any other foreign company with the technology of decoding it for decryption.
He informed that negotiations with Ukraine on transferring the black box to its accorded destination for decryption are underway but not finalized.
The Tehran-Kyiv flight was unintentionally shot down by an Iranian air defense unit shortly after taking off from Tehran on January 8, killing all 176 passengers and crew members on board.
The Iranian operator was reported to have mistaken the Boeing jetliner for a cruise missile.
The incident came as Iranian air defenses were at the highest level of alert following the country’s missile attacks against US bases in Iraq, which came in retaliation for Washington’s assassination of senior Iranian commander Lieutenant General Qasem Soleimani.
ZZ/4947224