KHARKIV, Ukraine (AP) — Two more military aircraft
carrying remains of victims from the Malaysian plane disaster arrived in
the Netherlands on Thursday, while Australian and Dutch diplomats
joined to promote a plan for a U.N. team to secure the crash site which
has been controlled by pro-Russian rebels.
Human remains continue
to be found a full week after the plane went down — underlining concerns
about the halting and chaotic recovery effort at the sprawling site
spread across farmland in eastern Ukraine. Armed separatists control the
area and have hindered access by investigators.
All 298 people
aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 — most of them Dutch citizens — were
killed when the plane was shot down on July 17. U.S. officials say the
Boeing 777 was probably shot down by a missile from territory held by
pro-Russian rebels, likely by accident.
Australian Prime Minister
Tony Abbott, who says he fears some remains will never be recovered
unless security is tightened, has proposed a multinational force mounted
by countries such as Australia, the Netherlands and Malaysia that lost
citizens in the disaster. Abbott said Thursday he had dispatched 50
police officers to London to be ready to join any organization which may
result.
Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop was traveling
with her Dutch counterpart Frans Timmermans to Kiev to seek an agreement
with the Ukraine government to allow international police to secure the
wreckage, Abbott said.
Details including which countries would
contribute and whether officers would be armed and protected by
international troops were yet to be agreed, Abbott said.
Meanwhile,
global aviation leaders will meet in Montreal next week to initiate
discussions on a plan to address safety and security issues raised by
the shoot-down of jet, an aviation official said late Thursday. The
official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to
discuss the issue publicly by name.
International experts found
more remains still at the crash site both Wednesday and Thursday,
Michael Bociurkiw, a spokesman for the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe, told reporters in Donetsk on Thursday. OSCE
observers, sent to monitor the conflict, escorted a delegation from
Australia to examine the wreckage Thursday for the first time. More
Australian specialists are expected to join them Friday, Bociurkiw said.
On
Monday, the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a resolution
proposed by Australia demanding that rebels cooperate with an
independent investigation and allow all remaining bodies to be
recovered.
The first remains arrived in the Netherlands on
Wednesday and were met by Dutch King Willem-Alexander, Queen Maxima and
hundreds of relatives. The two planes Thursday brought a total of 74
more coffins back to the Netherlands, said government spokesman Lodewijk
Hekking.
Patricia Zorko, head of the National Police Unit that
includes the Dutch national forensic team, said some 200 experts,
including 80 from overseas, were working in Hilversum at a military
barracks on the outskirts of the central city of Hilversum to identify
the dead. Around the world some 1,000 people are involved in the
process, which also includes gathering information from next of kin.
Staff
will "examine the bodies, describe the bodies, take dental information,
DNA and put all the information together in the computer and compare
this information with the information they gathered from the families in
the last days," police spokesman Ed Kraszewski said in a telephone
interview. "Then we have to see if there is a match."
There are three scientific methods of identifying bodies — dental records, finger prints and DNA.
After
the experts believe they have positively identified a body, they defend
their findings to an international panel. If both agree, the positive
identification will be sent to a Dutch prosecution office, which has the
power to release the body to the next of kin.
Zorko warned that the process of identification could be drawn out.
"Unfortunately this type of investigation often takes time," she said. "Count on weeks and
maybe even months."
The
Dutch Safety Board said investigators in England successfully
downloaded data from Flight 17’s Flight Data Recorder. It said "no
evidence or indications of manipulation of the recorder was found." It
did not release any details of the data.
Meanwhile, police and
traffic authorities appealed to the public not to stop on the highway as
a convoy of hearses passes by Thursday on its way from Eindhoven Air
Base to Hilversum.
On Wednesday, the convoy of hearses passed
through roads lined with thousands of members of the public, who
applauded, threw flowers or stood in silence as the cars drove by.
The
Dutch Foreign Ministry said Thursday that the number of Dutch victims
had risen by one to 194, taking into account a woman with joint German
and Dutch nationalities who earlier had been listed as German.
Senior
U.S. intelligence officials said Tuesday that Russia was responsible
for "creating the conditions" that led to the crash, but offered no
evidence of direct Russian government involvement.
The officials
said the plane was likely shot down by an SA-11 surface-to-air missile
fired by Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. The U.S.
officials cited intercepts, satellite photos and social media postings
by separatists, some of which have been authenticated by U.S. experts.
Russia
on Thursday brushed off the accusations. Deputy Defense Minister
Anatoly Antonov said in a video statement that if the U.S. officials
indeed had the proof the plane shot down by a missile launched from the
rebel-held territory, "how come they have not been made public?"
Pro-Russian
rebels and Ukrainian government troops have been fighting for more than
three months, leaving at least 400 dead and displacing tens of
thousands.
The Obama administration on Thursday accused Russia of
firing artillery from its territory into Ukraine to hit Ukrainian
military sites and asserted that Moscow is boosting its supply of
weaponry to pro-Russian separatists.
"We have new evidence that
the Russians intend to deliver heavier and more powerful multiple rocket
launchers to separatist forces in Ukraine and have evidence that Russia
is firing artillery from within Russian to attack Ukrainian military
positions," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters. She
said the evidence derived from "some intelligence information" but
declined to elaborate, saying it would compromise sources and methods of
intelligence collection.
In Brussels, ambassadors from the 28
European Union nations agreed Thursday to add more names to the list of
Russians and pro-Russian Ukrainians subject to EU-wide asset freezes and
travel bans for allegedly acting against Ukraine’s territorial
integrity. Seventy-two people are already covered by the measures.
European
Union officials said the new names would be made public only Friday and
the fresh sanctions could for the first time result in Russian
companies being blacklisted from doing business in the EU.
On
Friday, the ambassadors will meet again to discuss the possible
imposition of further sweeping measures, targeting Russia’s high-tech,
energy, defense and banking sectors, if Russia fails to cease its
alleged support for the rebellion.
White House spokesman Eric
Schultz said the White House expects that at least some of the
individuals targeted by the EU will overlap with those sanctioned
already by the U.S.
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Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow, Lucian
Kim in Donetsk, Ukraine, Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, and Rod
McGurk in Canberra, Australia, contributed to this report.