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EU condoles with Iran over crash

10 January 2011 23:48 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. European Union (EU) foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, has offered her "sincere condolences" to Iran over a deadly plane crash in the country’s northwest, APA reports quoting Press TV.

â€œI was deeply saddened to hear about the tragic plane crash in your country on Sunday 9 January and the loss of life and injuries that it brought," dpa quoted Ashton as saying in a Monday message to Iran’s caretaker Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi.

â€œPlease accept my sincere condolences. My thoughts and sympathy go out to the families and friends of the victims of this terrible incident,â€ she added.

The message from EU’s high commissioner for foreign affairs came on the heels of the recent plane accident near Iran’s northwestern city of Orumiyeh in West Azarbaijan province, which left 77 people dead and 27 more injured.

The IranAir-operated plane crashed near Lake Orumiyeh, 700 kilometers (almost 435 miles) northwest of the capital of Tehran, after it took off from Mehrabad International Airport on Sunday evening.

The plane reportedly approached the runway to land, but was forced to delay the touchdown due to bad weather. The aircraft then disappeared from radar and went down in a farmland after making a second attempt to land.

Iran’s Red Crescent Society told Press TV that the death toll is expected to rise.