OTTAWA – At the conclusion of his first official visit to Ukraine as Canada’s foreign affairs minister, François-Philippe Cham­pagne told reporters back home that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is assisting Ukrainian police in their criminal investigation of the Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) plane that Iran said its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps accidentally shot down on January 8.

“We always said from the beginning that we want to bring closure, accountability, transparency and justice – and this is the justice part,” said Mr. Champagne in a March 6 teleconference from Lviv. “We want to do everything we can to support [Ukraine] because obviously this was a Ukrainian airline flight, so we’re supporting Ukraine in their criminal investigation of those that would be responsible.”