From an NBC interview with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif:
Zarif also acknowledged that Iran is not able to extract information from the black box from the Ukrainian airliner that was shot down by Iranian forces on Jan. 8, but said that Tehran will not hand over the box to outside governments. Zarif defended Iran's decision not to hand over the black box from the Boeing-manufactured aircraft, which Iran says it shot down. Zarif called the incident a tragedy and noted that most of the 176 passengers killed had Iranian passports and relatives in Iran.
Under international aviation rules, Iran had the right to lead the investigation into the downing of the airliner, Zarif said. But he said Iran needed software, cables and additional expertise from the U.S. or other Western countries to be able to decipher the information in the black box.
"We have asked for help, why haven't the United States helped us? This is a humanitarian issue. Why haven't they given us the software? Why haven't they given us the expertise?" Zarif said.
"There are still a lot of unknowns. That's why we want more than anybody else to know what is in the black box, to know what actually happened."
For the moment, "it's just sitting there," Zarif said of the black box.
NBC's Engel asked Zarif, "Right now as we're sitting here , nobody is working on it? Nobody's trying to decipher this?"
And Zarif answered, "No, no. we will not touch the black box without the presence of all interested parties."
In a meeting earlier with Zarif in Munich, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he had "impressed upon" Iran's foreign minister that a complete and independent investigation into the shooting down of the Ukrainian passenger plane had to be carried out.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/t...zarif-n1137196