Ukraine’s government has cancelled a bilateral air transport agreement with Iran, which has been in place for over 30 years.
Permanent representative of the cabinet of ministers Taras Melnychuk, in a summary of discussions on government activity on 8 November, stated that the air services agreement between the two countries “has been terminated”.
The agreement had been signed in July 1993.
Melnychuk has not indicated the reason for the cancellation. But transfer of Iranian weapons to Russia had already led several European Union states – and subsequently the Council of the EU – either to suspend bilateral air transport agreements with Iran or sanction specific Iranian airlines.
The Ukrainian measure will realistically have little impact, because Ukrainian airspace has been closed since the conflict with Russian began in 2022.
Government relations between Ukraine and Iran had already been damaged, prior to the conflict, after a Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737-800 was shot down shortly after departing Tehran for Kyiv in January 2020.
