“The Iranian Civil Aviation Organization (CAO) has done the necessary correspondence with the air accident investigation and analysis office of France, and agreements have almost been finalized,” Baharvand said on Sunday.

“If everything goes like this and no unexpected event comes up, the black box will be taken to France by an aviation team from our country, and work to read and extract information from the black box will get underway on July 20, 2020," he said.

“A team of experts and technicians from the Islamic Republic of Iran will lead the research work and the reading of the information will be done under the guidance and supervision of the Iranian team,” he stated.

“Of course, other countries which are, one way or another, connected to this tragic event can send a representative to France as an observer,” the official went on to say. 

The Kiev-bound UIA Boeing 737 crashed shortly after taking off from Tehran on January 8, killing all 176 people on board, mostly Iranian and Canadian citizens.

Iran said the plane was hit by an anti-aircraft missile due to human error.