MH17: Tony Abbott says 50 AFP officers on standby to join international force to secure Malaysia Airlines crash site

Updated

Prime Minister Tony Abbott says 50 federal police officers are on standby to help secure the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crash site.

The Malaysia Airlines plane was shot down eastern Ukraine last Thursday in an attack which saw 298 people killed, including 37 Australian citizens and residents.

Mr Abbott says the AFP officers are in London awaiting approval for an international force to secure the site of the Malaysia Airlines crash.

"We are ready to deploy Australian police to the Ukraine, to help secure the site as a part of an international team under United Nations authorities," he said.

On the site, it is still clear that nothing is happening without the approval of the armed rebels, who most likely brought the plane down in the first place. Tony Abbott

The Prime Minister has told reporters on Canberra that while the situation on the ground in eastern Ukraine has improved, there is a long way to go to gain free and unfettered access to the crash site.

"On the site, it is still clear that nothing is happening without the approval of the armed rebels, who most likely brought the plane down in the first place," he said.

"There has still not been anything like a thorough professional search of the area, where the plane came down."

Mr Abbott says Operation Bring Them Home to repatriate the bodies of 37 Australian victims is in full swing.

He says there are now over 200 Australian officials deployed overseas to support the operation.

"We want to bring them home as soon as possible," he said.

The Prime Minister says he spoke to the Ukraine's president Petro Poroshenko and Russian president Vladimir Putin about the need to secure the site.

It is the second conversation Mr Abbott and Mr Putin have had since the tragedy.

"Without going into the detail of who said what to whom, President Putin does think it is important that the site be secured by international police," Mr Abbott said.

The Prime Minister says the difficulty is the site is controlled by armed men "with a vested interest in the result of the investigation".

The plan to send AFP officers to the crash site has been welcomed by Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, who is in Washington.

"I have complete confidence in the professionalism and skills of the Australian Federal Police personnel should they be deployed to undertake this important task," he said.

The exact circumstances of an Australian deployment in eastern Ukraine is yet to be determined.

Negotiations for a multinational security effort are underway.

But Mr Abbott says the 50 AFP officers are ready to go to Ukraine.

"We want them to go into the Ukraine as a part of an international team, under the authority of the United Nations, to do this vital job and ensure that Operation Bring Them Home happens," he said.

Concerns over safety of Australian personnel

A former Chief of the Australian Defence Force says the Australia sponsored UN resolution which passed the Security Council this week is broad and can be used to underpin a security operation.

Admiral Chris Barrie says world leaders will have to work out a complex set of architecture to send a force to the MH17 crash site.

"I think there has to be a political framework, something that guarantees the operation," he said.

"We would not want to put even armed ADF personnel into a situation where these two sides were trying to kill each other. That's not a good look and it makes it a huge problem for management purposes."

Mr Abbott says the safety of Australian personnel in eastern Ukraine is paramount.

"I accept there is potential for difficulty," Mr Abbott conceded.

"Obviously I would be very careful about putting an Australian personnel seriously into harm’s way without appropriate protection."

Mr Abbott says he will take Mr Putin at his word when he gave an assurance that the families of the victims would be satisfied.

"He wanted to see, as a father himself, grieving families given closure," he said.

"President Putin has said all the right things. We all know that the Russians do have some influence over at least some of the elements that are operating against the Ukrainian government in eastern Ukraine.

"We want to give him a further opportunity to be as good as his word."

Some bodies may never be identified, Abbott warns

All the remains are being sent to the Netherlands for identification.

Mr Abbott says the job ahead remains difficult with the search area over 50 square kilometres.

"There could be remains exposed to the European summer, exposed to the ravages of heat and animals," he said.

But he concedes some bodies may never be identified.

"It is a very violent business, the explosion of an aircraft. Obviously coming down from 30,000 feet can do pretty horrible things to the human body," he said.

"So there may well be remains, quite small remains, over a wide area."

The BBC's Fergus Keane says there is no security and no international presence at the scene of the disaster.

"At the scene of the MH17 crash site this morning all that can be seen is some journalists. There is no sign of proper cordon in force, no sign of emergency workers and no sign of the militia that have been guarding the site over most of the past week," he said.

"Walking up the road here we have seen still some evidence of human remains to the side of the road.

"It is also possible for anyone who wants to to come onto this site to walk through the wreckage, through people's belongings."

It is expected the AFP officers would be deployed for a couple of weeks while forensic experts do their job.

Topics: air-and-space, accidents, disasters-and-accidents, terrorism, world-politics, foreign-affairs, government-and-politics, australia, asia, ukraine, russian-federation

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