Australia finalising deal to send police to crash site

SYDNEY — Australia is close to finalising a deal with Ukraine to send its police and a small number of troops as part of a multinational team to secure the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, said Prime Minister Tony Abbott yesterday.

Australia has 90 federal police officers in Europe ready to be deployed to the site in eastern Ukraine where the flight was downed last week, Mr Tony Abbott said. Some of the officers could be armed and would be accompanied by members of Australia’s defence force, he said.

Armed pro-Russian separatists control the area and have hampered attempts by investigators to access the site.

Mr Abbott stressed that the team, which would include officials from countries that lost citizens in the disaster, would not be going in as part of a military mission.

“This is a humanitarian mission ... with a clear and simple objective: To bring them home,” Mr Abbott told reporters in Canberra. “Others can engage in the politics of eastern Europe. All we want to do is claim our dead and bring them home.”

All 298 people on the plane were killed when it was shot down on July 17, possibly by a missile from territory held by pro-Russian rebels. Thirty-seven Australian citizens and residents were on board.

The urgency to secure the area grew after three Australian officials travelled to the crash site on Thursday and found more wreckage and human remains, Mr Abbott said.

“With these remains exposed to the ravages of heat and animals and to the continuing possibility of human interference, it’s more important than ever that the site be properly secured,” Mr Abbott said. Another 100 Australian police officers will be deployed to Europe in the next 24 hours, Mr Abbott said.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop presented to the United Nations Security Council an Australia-sponsored resolution demanding that the rebels cooperate with an independent investigation. The resolution was passed unanimously on Monday. AP