You're reading: Netherlands won’t drop efforts to bring to account perpetrators of MH17 disaster – foreign minister

The Netherlands find it difficult to understand a Russia's motivation when the latter blocked a resolution that would have set up an international tribunal to prosecute those suspected of downing a Malaysia Airlines passenger airliner in eastern Ukraine last year.

“I find it incomprehensible that a member of the Security Council obstructs justice in a tragedy that has affected so many. Impunity will give a very dangerous signal,” said the Dutch foreign chief Bert Koenders during a UN Security Council on July 29 evening.

He said that the countries involved in the probe over the MH17 crash won’t stop until finding the methods to punish the perpetrators.

The minister explained that his nation, which suffered the loss of 196 Dutch citizens, took responsibility for identifying and repatriating remains.

“On behalf of the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium and Ukraine, Malaysia presented to the Council a thorough and carefully drafted proposal for an international criminal tribunal, to be established under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter,” he said. “Our purpose remains to create a timely, depoliticized and credible mechanism to ensure that the perpetrators face justice and are held to account.”

Russia on Wednesday vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that would set up an international criminal court to prosecute those responsible for shooting down a Malaysia Airlines plane over Ukraine a year ago.