PETALING JAYA: A multinational security force is expected to fly into Ukraine to secure a 50sq km zone where Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down.
The force is expected to be led by the Dutch, who lost 193 citizens in the tragedy, while Australia could serve as the deputy.
Malaysia, Germany and Britain are the other three nations that are expected to contribute to the security force, with Malaysia having lost 43 people in the tragedy. The United States has also offered to join in the operation but the offer is unlikely to be accepted.
Calling it the “coalition of the grieving”, the Sydney Morning Herald said Germany and Britain were now in discussion about the nature and composition of the forces they would send to the site deep in rebel-held territory.
Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai, who returned from Ukraine yesterday, said Malaysia was continuing to press for safe and unrestricted access to the site.
He said the site was still not safe for investigators to conduct their work.
Australia has 90 federal police officers in Europe ready to be deployed to the site in eastern Ukraine where the plane was downed last week, Prime Minister 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 investigators’ attempts to access the site.
Abbott stressed that the team, which would include 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,” Abbott told reporters in Canberra, the nation’s capital.
“Others can engage in the politics of eastern Europe. All we want to do is to claim our dead and to bring them home.”
Another 100 Australian police officers will be deployed to Europe in the next 24 hours, Abbott said.
The Netherlands is sending 40 unarmed military police to the area, Prime Minister Mark Rutte has announced.
He is also sending forensic investigators to the site to try to piece together what exactly happened when the plane was shot down a week ago, killing all 298 people on board.
Rutte said the military police will help the investigators.
“They are really looking like the forensic experts. They will be extra hands and eyes to look for remaining remains and personal belongings,” he said.
The Netherlands Cabinet is expected to decide over the weekend whether or not to send armed personnel to the crash zone.
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