KIEV • The bodies of the 11 Ukrainian citizens who died when a passenger plane was accidentally shot down by Iran this month were brought back to Ukraine yesterday in a solemn ceremony at Kiev airport.

All 176 on board the Ukraine International Airlines flight from Teheran to Kiev were killed when the Boeing 737-800 was shot down on Jan 8, at a time when Iran was on high alert for a US attack. Most of those on board were Iranians or dual nationals.

Canada had 57 citizens on board. Nine of the Ukrainian citizens were crew members. With President Volodymyr Zelensky looking on, coffins draped in the Ukrainian flag were carried one by one from a Ukrainian military plane to waiting hearses at Kiev's Boryspil airport.

Soldiers held up flags to represent the different nationalities of those who died. Relatives came to the airport carrying bunches of flowers. Airline staff, some in tears, were waiting on the tarmac.

The plane disaster sparked unrest in Iran and added to international pressure on the country as it grapples with a long-running dispute with the United States over its nuclear programme and its influence in the region that briefly erupted into open conflict this month.

Meanwhile, Iran said yesterday that there were "no plans for now" to send the black box from the plane that crashed to Ukraine or any other country, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (Irna) reported.

The latest announcement appeared to contradict an earlier statement last Saturday saying that Iran would send the black boxes to Ukraine to be decoded.

"We will try to decode the black box of the accident-stricken Ukrainian plane in Iran," said Mr Hassan Rezaeifar, head of the Iranian Civil Aviation Organisation's accident investigation office.

"Our next options are Ukraine and France, but we still haven't made a decision about transferring it to a second country."

Iran is under international pressure to provide more information on the circumstances that led to the shooting down of Flight 752 earlier this month.

The comments published by Irna yesterday were in contrast to remarks on semi-official Tasnim news agency last Saturday, when Mr Rezaeifar said that the black boxes would not be decoded in Iran and would be transferred to Ukraine in line with a request from officials in Kiev.

The Iranian Civil Aviation Organisation could not immediately comment yesterday when reached by phone.

REUTERS, BLOOMBERG