Iranian officials and media outlets have denied claims they shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet, killing 170 people, and said they are currently cooperating with other countries in their investigation of the incident.

Abbas Mousavi, spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, said Iran is following “international standards” in their investigation. He added that officials from both Ukraine, which owned the plane, and Boeing, the plane's motor manufacturer, have been invited to participate in the investigation. The National Transportation Safety Board, an independent US government agency responsible for investigating civil transportation accidents, said they had received formal notification from Iran and have assigned a representative to investigate the crash.

Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, which was carrying mostly Iranians and Canadians but also Ukrainian, Swedish, Afghan, German and British citizens, crashed the same night Iran launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles into two Iraqi airbases housing US forces in retaliation for a US strike that killed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani. Western media outlets reported that intelligence officials believe Iran had accidentally shot down the plane with a surface to air missile. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose country lost 63 citizens, mostly Iranian-Canadians, reiterated the claim that Iran had shot down the plane based on Canada’s intelligence and intelligence offered to him by allies.

Mousavi said Iran welcomes experts from countries who lost citizens on the flight. He also said he welcomed any intelligence that the Canadian government could offer. President Hassan Rouhani’s deputy director of communications tweeted that the presidents of Iran and Ukraine spoke on the phone and had agreed to form a committee to investigate the crash, which will be led by the country’s foreign ministers.