ISLAMABAD - Pakistan responds over Iranian admission of shooting down Ukrainian plane.
Pakistan Foreign Minister (FM) Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Saturday hoped Iran's admission of its mistake on the airplane accident will ease tensions in the region.
“Iran’s confession of downing Ukrainian passenger plane should ease up tensions as the region can neither endure tension nor can it tolerate war anymore,” he said.
FM Qureshi reiterated that Pakistan would play an active role to reduce growing tensions in the region.
"On Prime Minister Imran Khan’s instructions I am going to visit Iran, and we plan on visiting Saudi Arabia and the United States of America shortly after," he said.
Iranian armed forces on Saturday admitted that they unintentionally shot down the Ukrainian airliner that crashed this week and blamed "human error" for the mistake.
The aircraft, which crashed earlier killing all 176 people on board, was mistaken for a "hostile plane" and was hit while enemy threats were at the highest level, according to a press statement published by the official *IRNA* news agency.