AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER Tony Abbott hit out at the “shambolic” situation at the MH17 crash site as he demanded Russian President Vladimir Putin back up assurances with action.
Abbott and Putin spoke by telephone overnight in their first conversation since the Malaysia Airlines plane, carrying 298 people, crashed in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, apparently shot down by pro-Russian rebels with a surface-to-air missile.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, British counterpart David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande also piled pressure on Putin over the weekend in phone calls.
While Abbott would not divulge details of what was discussed, he said the onus was now on Moscow to act, using its influence with pro-Russian separatists to ensure experts can access the site of the crash.
“To President Putin’s credit he did say all the right things. I want to stress what he said was fine,” Abbott told a press conference.
“The challenge now is to hold the president to his word. That is certainly my intention, and it should be the intention of the family of nations to hold the president to his word.”
Rutte talked with Putin on Sunday, with the Russian leader promising to help retrieve bodies and black boxes, a spokeswoman for Dutch government press service RVD told AFP.
Abbott has been particularly vocal among world leaders in his outrage at Russia’s perceived lack of cooperation in the investigation into the disaster.
He has branded the plane’s downing “a crime”, and accused Moscow of trying to wash its hands of the tragedy while failing to properly secure the crash site.
Moscow denies any involvement in the disaster.
Twenty-eight Australian nationals and nine residents were among the 298 people from a dozen countries on board who died.
Trains
On Sunday, pro-Russian militiamen in Ukraine loaded almost 200 bodies from the flight into refrigerated train wagons. A rebel chief said they were holding them until “the experts arrive”.
Canberra wants a full and impartial investigation in the disaster, but Abbott said a key difficulty was that there was “no-one in authority in charge on the ground”.
He said he had sent former defence force chief Angus Houston to be his personal envoy on the ground in Ukraine and to help recover the remains of the Australians killed.
Abbott added that the government was considering designating the MH17 disaster as a terrorist attack, which would trigger compensation payments to the families of Australian victims.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say