Lavrov said on Tuesday on the sidelines of a ministerial meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Astana, Kazakhstan, that US sanctions had worsened aviation safety in countries around the world.
He was commenting on the May 19 helicopter crash in northwest Iran which resulted in the deaths for Raisi, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, two senior local officials as well as two guards, two pilots and a crew member.
“The Americans disown this, but the truth is that other countries against which the United States announced sanctions do not receive spare parts for American equipment, including aviation,” Lavrov said about the crash.
“We are talking about deliberately causing damage to ordinary citizens who use these vehicles, and when spare parts are not supplied, this is directly related to a decrease in the level of safety,” he added, according to remarks carried by Reuters news agency.
Iran has been under a severe regime of US sanctions since 2018 when a former US president withdrew from an international deal on Iran’s nuclear program and imposed sanctions on the country.
The sanctions have obviously restricted Iran’s access to spare parts, forcing the country to rely on domestic know-how to upgrade its aviation fleet.
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