NEW YORK: DEMONSTRATING grief and shock over the shooting down of the Malaysia Airlines plane in Eastern Ukraine, all members of the United Nations Security Council held a moment of silence on Friday to pay homage to the memory of the victims of the MH17 flight before conducting official business.
A top UN official said the plane crash also underlined the urgency for resolving the Ukrainian crisis by immediately enforcing resumption of a ceasefire and intensifying efforts to end the crisis.
In a cautiously-worded statement, UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Jeffrey Feltman, said that although there was, at this point, no independent verification of the circumstances regarding the tragic crash, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was “alarmed” at what seemed to be “credible, numerous reports” suggesting that a sophisticated surface-to-air missile was used to bring down the passenger plane.
“The secretary-general strongly condemns this apparently deliberate downing of a civilian aircraft,” said Feltman, adding that “this horrifying incident serves as the starkest reminder of how dire the situation in eastern Ukraine has become and how it affects countries and families well beyond Ukraine’s borders”.
Both Ban and the Security Council have called for an international investigation into the incident.
The Security Council had also stressed
the need for all parties to grant immediate access by investigators to the crash site. Bernama
