Tony Abbott calls for justice for MH17 victims during trip to Netherlands
Australian leader offers condolences to Dutch and will hold talks on finishing the investigation and ensuring ‘guilty are punished’
Tony Abbott will hold talks with his Dutch counterpart and military officials in theNetherlands on how the “murderers” who shot down Malaysia Airlines flight 17 can best be brought to justice.
The prime minister landed at Rotterdam airport for a 24-hour visit which is due to kick off with talks with the Dutch defence chief on Monday morning.
The trip will conclude with a bilateral meeting with the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, in the evening.
“While here in the Netherlands I will have an opportunity to talk to Prime Minister Rutte and other Dutch officials about the ongoing investigation into the shooting down of MH17,” Abbott said at Rotterdam airport.
“I will have an opportunity to talk to Prime Minister Rutte and his senior officials about just what needs to be done to ensure that the investigation is concluded and the guilty are punished and justice is delivered to the grieving families of the 298 innocent people who were murdered on flight MH17.”
Abbott has said pro-Russian militants are responsible for downing the aircraft over eastern Ukraine on 17 July.
The prime minister is joined on the trip by the chief of the defence force, Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin, and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) commissioner, Tony Negus.
The prime minister said he was in the Netherlands “first and foremost” to offer condolences to the government and the Dutch people for their extraordinary loss in the MH17 atrocity.
Abbott also wanted to personally thank Rutte and both Dutch and Australian police and military personnel working to identify and repatriate all the victims.
Between meetings, the prime minister will travel to Eindhoven airbase to inspect one of the RAAF C-17 transporters that has been used to repatriate remains from Ukraine’s second-biggest city, Kharkiv.
Abbott will meet RAAF crew and have lunch with (Australian Defence Force) ADF personnel.
The Liberal leader will then lay a floral tribute to the victims at the Hilversum military barracks where their remains are being identified by forensic experts, including a small team of Australians.
The prime minister and his party will fly from the Netherlands to London on Monday night local time for talks with the British government and officials about counterterrorism operations and the deteriorating situation in Iraq.
Abbott said the MH17 body recovery operation was officially suspended because of the risks to investigators on the ground.
“But if at a later time the fighting in the area subsides, if we think there are more remains to recover, obviously we’ll go back,” he told ABC radio from the Netherlands.
“We think we have got everything which is readily available at the moment, so I suppose this part of Operation Bring Them Home is over.”
Abbott repeated earlier comments that uranium sanctions could be considered against Russia over its policy on Ukraine.
“We certainly anticipate tougher sanctions against Russia in the weeks ahead,” he said.
However, Australia would adopt a “wait-and-see” approach before considering whether to revoke the invitation of the Russian president Vladimir Putin, to the G20 leaders’ summit in Brisbane in November.
Abbott acknowledged that, while the meeting was an economic, not security, gathering, the two could not be divorced.
“My hope is that even at this stage, Russia will wake up to itself,” he said.
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