In the statement, Iran acknowledged that it unintentionally shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane on Wednesday, killing all 176 people aboard, including 9 crew members.

"The altitude and the direction of the flight's movement were like an enemy target, so the aircraft was targeted unintentionally due to human error which unfortunately caused the martyrdom of a number of Iranian national together with a number of foreigners," the statement said.

"Offering condolences to the family of victims and expressing apologies over the human error, Iranian Armed Forces Staff assures the nation that it will make re-occurrence of such incidents impossible through conducting fundamental modifications in operations’ processes of the Armed Forces and that it will hand over the culprit to the military court so as to legally deal with the errors," it added.

The plane belonging to a Ukrainian airline crashed near Tehran minutes after the take-off from Imam Khomeini Airport after its engine caught fire on Wednesday. All of its 167 passengers and 9 crewmembers were killed in the crash. It was the deadliest aviation disaster to occur on Iran's soil in more than a decade.

ILKHA