Russia should consider issuing an apology and providing compensation to relatives over the downing of MH17, Tony Abbott has told Vladimir Putin at a meeting in Beijing.
The Australian prime minister and the Russian president discussed the Malaysia Airlines tragedy during a 15-minute meeting on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit on Tuesday.
Abbott, who had previously threatened to “shirtfront” Putin over Russia’s alleged role in the shooting down of the passenger plane over eastern Ukraine in July, emphasised the need for all countries to abide by the United Nations Security Council resolution 2166 and fully co-operate with the independent investigation.
Abbott’s office said the prime minister indicated he “was in possession of information suggesting that MH17 was destroyed by a missile from a launcher that had come out of Russia, was fired from inside eastern Ukraine and then returned to Russia”.
Abbott, who had previously accused Russia of supplying the equipment to separatists in eastern Ukraine, told Putin this would be “very serious” if true.
The prime minister’s office said Abbott cited the US navy’s shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane in 1988, saying it “had duly apologised and made appropriate restitution”.
“He commended the precedent to president Putin,” Abbott’s office said.
“The prime minister and president Putin agreed that all relevant information should be provided to the independent investigation and that the investigation should proceed with the full support of the international community.”
The Kremlin said Abbott and Putin both urged investigators to speed up the investigation into the MH17 crash, which killed 298 passengers including 38 Australian citizens and residents.
The Kremlin noted “the unacceptability of a situation when experts cannot get to the crash site”, Agence France-Presse reported.
“Vladimir Putin stressed that from the very beginning Russia consistently demanded that the investigation be unbiased, quick and effective.”
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, was quoted by the state news agency RIA Novosti as saying Abbott did not appear to deliver on his “shirtfront” threat – an Australian Rules football term for a physical confrontation.
“It appears that he did not try,” Peskov said.
A Dutch-led investigation’s preliminary report in September said MH17 broke up in mid-air as a result of structural damage caused by “a large number of high-energy objects that penetrated the aircraft from outside”, but did not assign blame.
The meeting with Putin on Tuesday was not the first time Abbott had raised the example of the US shooting down an Iranian passenger plane in 1988.
On 18 July, just hours after the MH17 crash, Abbott said: “Some years ago now, an American warship by mistake downed an Iranian aircraft. There were immediate apologies, there was massive compensation paid and, as I understand it, there were various changes to procedures to ensure this kind of thing, as far as is humanly possible, could not happen again in those circumstances.”
In 1996, the US government expressed “deep regret” rather than a formal apology, and agreed to a $132m settlement, including $62m for the families of the 248 Iranian victims.
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