Putin blames others for exploiting MH17 crash

Putin said Russia was doing everything possible to allow a team of experts from the International Civil Aviation Organization, a UN agency, to investigate the scene. He also again criticised the Ukraine authorities in Kiev for reigniting the fighting with the pro-Russian rebels who control the crash site."We can say with confidence that if fighting in eastern Ukraine had not been renewed on June 28, this tragedy would not have happened," Putin said. "Nobody should or does have a right to use this tragedy for such mercenary objectives."Putin is coming under increasing international pressure to rein in the rebels in Ukraine and allow international inspectors to investigate the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was downed Thursday over Ukraine, killing all 298 people aboard.On Sunday, the United States presented what it called "powerful" evidence that the rebels shot down the plane with a Russian surface-to-air missile."Russia is supporting these separatists. Russia is arming these separatists. Russia is training these separatists," Secretary of State John Kerry said on CNN's 'State of the Union.The leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Australia also spoke to Putin by phone late Sunday. European foreign ministers are also meeting in Brussels Tuesday to consider further sanctions on Russia.International indignation has grown as investigators still only have limited access to the sprawling fields where the plane fell.Pro-Moscow rebels piled nearly 200 bodies from the downed Malaysian jetliner into four refrigerated boxcars Sunday in eastern Ukraine, and cranes at the crash scene moved big chunks of the Boeing 777, drawing condemnation that the site was being tampered with.Emergency workers, who the rebels have allowed to operate under their control, were searching the sprawling fields. Cranes moved pieces of the plane around, apparently to look for more bodies underneath.By Sunday night, Ukraine's emergency services agency said the total number of bodies found was 251.In an opinion piece for the Sunday Times, British Prime Minister David Cameron said there was a "growing weight of evidence" suggesting that the rebels shot down the plane.If that was the case, Cameron said that was "a direct result of Russia destabilizing a sovereign state, violating its territorial integrity, backing thuggish militias and training and arming them."(thedailystar.net)Bakudaily.az