Malaysia submitting resolution to United Nations over flight shot down over Ukraine

This proposal is supported by Malaysia, Belgium, Australia and the Ukraine.

Meanwhile yesterday it also emerged that amid rising frustrations over the expensive, so-far fruitless search for vanished Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, experts are questioning the competence of the company in charge, including whether crews may have passed over the sunken wreckage without even noticing.

All 298 people on board died.

However, unnamed diplomats said that Russian Federation had described the proposal as premature.

Malaysian diplomat Johan Ariff Abdul Razak said after the security council discussions that “our sense was that all council members including Russian Federation were open to further consider the matter”.

Separatist leaders have denied accusations they used an anti-aircraft missile to shoot down the plane. Ukraine and Western countries accuse the rebels of shooting the plane down with a Russian-made missile. It crashed over rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine.

New Zealand’s United Nations ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, the current council president, said after Malaysia’s closed-door briefing that the five countries – Malaysia, Ukraine, Netherlands, Australia and Belgium – were seeking “criminal accountability” for the downing of the aircraft.

The Netherlands has taken the lead in an a multinational investigation into the crash.

Russian Federation is reportedly not supportive of the plan, with deputy foreign minister Gennadiy Gatilov saying that the proposal was “not timely and counterproductive”, AFP reported.

“I expect that issue to be the subject of quite intensive consultations in the course of the coming months”, the Wellington envoy said.

Russian Federation has veto powers in the 15-member security council, along with the USA, China, Britain and France.

It said the Australian government was also asked to comment on the report’s assessment on whether the ill-fated plane should have been assigned the flight path it was on and whether the process of releasing passenger information could have been better handled.