August 2, 2014 -- Updated 1534 GMT (2334 HKT)
The grisly search for human remains from MH17 entered a new phase, as
the largest group yet of international experts scoured the crash site in
eastern Ukraine. FULL STORY
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PROBE BEGINS
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80 BODIES MAY BE AT SITE
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80 BODIES MAY BE AT SITE
MH17: 70 international experts search Ukraine crash site for bodies
August 1, 2014 -- Updated 1738 GMT (0138 HKT)
Source: CNN
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: Obama, Putin speak about Ukraine
- Biggest group yet of 70 Dutch and Australian experts spends day at crash site
- Dutch officials say all remains found Friday will be taken to the Netherlands
- "We hope that this will bring some solace for the next of kin," says Dutch official
In total, 70 Dutch and
Australian experts reached the scene, many more than had made it there
previously in the two weeks since the crash, in which 298 people lost
their lives.
The Organization for
Security and Co-operation in Europe, whose monitors escorted the experts
on their difficult mission, said via Twitter that "substantial recovery
efforts" had been made.
"We are happy that we can
make sure that these corpses can now be transported to the
Netherlands," said Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, head of the Dutch recovery
mission.
"We hope that this will
bring some solace for the next of kin. It is a relief for our people
that they have now started their work."
Friday's visit to the
site has been completed and all human remains found will be brought
back, the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice said in a statement.
The Netherlands is leading the international investigation.
Over the past two days,
the international team has taken a different route to reach the crash
site, after days of fighting between Ukraine's military and pro-Russia
rebels prevented their access.
High-level negotiations
with both sides made it possible for the experts' convoy of vehicles to
cross and recross the front lines to approach from the north, helped by a
brief break in the hostilities in the area.
Aalbersberg said the
recovery team is now on its way to a new base in the town of Soledar, to
the northwest of the rural location in eastern Ukraine where MH17 came
down on July 17, strewing debris across a huge area.
The mission will still
have personnel in the cities of Kharkiv and Donetsk, the latter a rebel
stronghold that has seen fighting this week.
Second victim identified
On Thursday, when just
four experts made it to the site alongside eight monitors, they marked
locations where they spotted human remains, OSCE spokesman Michael
Bociurkiw said.
He said then that they might use cadaver dogs and aerial surveillance to search the scene when they returned Friday.
"This all goes back to
time is of the essence," he told CNN's Anderson Cooper late Thursday.
"Everyone realizes that time is no longer on our side, that this
investigation has to kick-start into high gear right away."
Many coffins holding
remains -- collected in the first week after the disaster -- already
have been flown to the Netherlands, where the Malaysia Airlines flight
originated.
There, in the city of
Hilversum, more than 200 forensic specialists are working to identify
the individual victims from the remains found.
The Dutch Ministry of
Security and Justice said Friday that the identity of a second victim
had been confirmed. The relatives of the victim, a Dutch citizen, have
been informed, as has victim's local mayor, the statement said.
The painstaking and
heartbreaking task of identifying every victim could take months, the
Dutch authorities have warned. About two-thirds of those killed were
Dutch, with Malaysians and Australians making up a large proportion of
the others.
As many as 80 bodies
could still be lying in the fields of eastern Ukraine where the
passenger jet crashed, Australia's Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told
CNN on Thursday.
"But we won't know until
our investigative teams are on the site and combing the crash site for
remains," Bishop said. "And that's the grisly and sobering task that
they must undertake from now on."
Ukraine's parliament
approved agreements Thursday that allow international personnel from
countries that had citizens on Flight 17 to work at the crash site. Up
to 700 of them can be armed.
Talks on crisis held in Belarus
A one-day cease-fire
declared by the Ukrainian military ended Friday morning, but Ukrainian
Deputy Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said it would seek to maintain a
halt in hostilities on the route to the crash site.
Overnight, 10 Ukrainian
paratroopers were killed near Shakhtarsk, less than 25 kilometers (15
miles) from the crash area, when their convoy came under attack from
pro-Russia rebel forces, according to the Facebook page of Ukraine's
Counter-Terrorist Operation.
Malaysia Airlines jet crashes in Ukraine
Ukraine declares one-day cease-fire
Ukraine's broken military
Eight bodies have been
evacuated so far, and the troops have been pulled out to a safer area,
the Facebook post said. The militants have prevented recovery of two
other bodies by constantly firing at the site, it added.
Ukrainian National
Security and Defense Council spokesman Andriy Lysenko said at a briefing
Friday that Russia was "actively preparing firing positions for
shelling Ukrainian territory" and has positioned 17 Grad rocket systems
in its Bryansk region, about three miles from the border with Ukraine,
according to Ukraine's Ukrinform news agency.
Senior representatives
of Ukraine, Russia and OSCE, known as the Trilateral Contact Group, held
talks on the crisis Thursday in Belarus with representatives of the
eastern Ukraine rebel groups.
The participants
"committed to securing further safe access to international
investigators to the crash site until the investigation activities on
the spot are completed," a statement from the Trilateral Contact Group
said.
They also discussed the
situation of hostages taken during the three-month-long conflict and
agreed to the release "of a sizable number of persons deprived of
freedom," it said.
Former Ukrainian
President Leonid Kuchma told the news agency Interfax-Ukraine on Friday
that 20 people would be freed "in the near future."
He was also quoted as
saying a promise had been made to transfer the personal belongings of
those killed on Flight 17, currently still strewn across the crash area.
The rebels and
Trilateral Contact Group agreed to continue the talks -- held at the
initiative of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko -- next week.
Russian remains defiant
U.S. and Ukrainian
officials have alleged that a Russian-made missile system downed the
plane from rebel-held territory; Russia and the rebel fighters deny
involvement.
Ukrainian and Western
leaders also accuse Russia of continuing to arm and support the rebels
since the plane's downing, an allegation Moscow rejects.
In a bid to crank up
pressure on Russia to rein in the rebels, Europe and the United States
imposed new sanctions this week aimed at disrupting activity in Moscow's
banking, oil and arms industries.
But Russia, while warning that the sanctions will harm relations and damage the European economy as much as its own, has remained defiant.
Russian state news
agency Itar-Tass cited Vladimir Chizhov, Russia's EU ambassador, as
saying Friday that his country's banking sector "will face certain
difficulties" but that its economy "has sufficient resources to tackle
these problems."
U.S. concerns
Obama spoke Friday with
Putin and underscored "his deep concerns about Russia's increased
support for the separatists in Ukraine," the White House said.
"The President
reinforced his preference for a diplomatic solution to the crisis in
Ukraine, and the two leaders agreed to keep open their channels of
communication. The President also reiterated his concerns about Russia's
compliance with its obligations under the INF Treaty," the White House
said.
The Kremlin said Putin
and Obama agreed on the need for an immediate end to hostilities in
eastern Ukraine and the need to continue dialogue. Sanctions against
Russia are counterproductive, Putin told Obama during a telephone
conversation initiated by the United States on Friday, the Kremlin said
in a statement.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden spoke Friday with Poroshenko.
Biden announced about $8
million in new assistance to the Ukrainian State Border Guard Service.
It includes "engineering equipment for improving infrastructure along
Ukraine's borders, transport and patrol vehicles, surveillance equipment
to extend the visual range of border security patrols, and small boats
to conduct maritime patrol and interdiction operations."
CNN's Ivan Watson reported from Kiev, and
Laura Smith-Spark wrote and reported in London. CNN's Mick Krever,
Alexander Felton and Lindsay Isaac and journalist Victoria Butenko
contributed to this report.
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- copy http://edition.cnn.com/
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