The bodies of passengers and crew members of the Ukraine International Airlines plane downed in Tehran will be repatriated on Sunday, Ukraine's Kyiv Post reported.

"The bodies of Ukrainian passengers and crew members of PS752 flight will be repatriated to Ukraine on Sunday, January 19," the press service of UIA posted on Facebook, noting that commemoration is scheduled to be held at the Terminal B of the Boryspil International Airport.

"Access is open to everyone. We gather at the entrance to Terminal B at 12:00. You can pay last respects to the deceased from 13:00 to 19:00," the UIA said.

Apart from bodies, the black boxes of the crashed Ukrainian passenger plane which was shot down by Iranian forces will also be sent to Ukraine, Iranian media reported on Saturday.

"The black boxes cannot be read in Iran, and following the request of the Ukrainians, they will be sent to Ukraine," the Iranian Daneshjoo news agency reported, citing Hassan Rezaeefar, the director of Incident Investigation of Iran's Aviation Organization.

On January 8, the Ukrainian airliner crashed shortly after taking off from Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport, killing all 176 people aboard. Days after the crash, Iran's armed forces admitted that the plane was "unintentionally" hit by Iran and "human error" was to blame.

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The aim of sending the black boxes, according to Rezaifar, was to read the information on the recorders "with the use of the expertise of the countries of France, Canada and America."

"If this effort is unsuccessful then the black boxes will be sent to France," he said, according to Tasnim, adding that black boxes were being sent to Kiev at the request of Ukrainian experts in Tehran and that they would not be inspected in Iran.

The U.S.-built Boeing 737-800 was en route from Tehran to the Ukrainian capital. Most of those on board were Iranians or dual nationals. Canada had 57 citizens on board.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has been pressing for a full investigation into the plane downing, said on Friday Iran should send the black boxes to France.

France was one of the few countries with the ability to read the flight and cockpit data recorders from the jet, Trudeau told a news conference, adding they were badly damaged.

Canada's Foreign Ministry and the prime minister's office had no immediate comment on the move to send the black boxes to Ukraine. 

French Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment and a spokesman for France's air accident agency, BEA, said it was awaiting an official request for assistance.

A spokesman for the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board also said it had no comment.

Ukraine has previously said it expected Iran to hand over the black boxes to Ukraine. The foreign minister also expects Iranian representatives to travel to Kiev next week.

Canada, alongside Ukraine, Sweden, Afghanistan and Britain, which also had citizens on the flight, have called for a thorough investigation and compensation for the families.

The plane was brought down in the tense hours after Iran launched missiles at U.S. targets in Iraq in response to the U.S. killing of a high-ranking Iranian commander in a drone strike on January 3 in Baghdad.

Iran's foreign ministry urged those involved in the crash to avoid making it an "excuse for political gestures."

Addressing the crisis, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told worshipers chanting "Death to America" at prayers on Friday that the disaster was a "bitter tragedy that burned through our heart."

But he said "some tried to use it as an excuse to overshadow the martyrdom of our great commander" Qasem Soleimani, Iran's most powerful general who was killed in the U.S. drone strike.

The death of Soleimani, portrayed as a national hero at home but viewed as a dangerous enemy in the West, prompted huge mourning ceremonies in Iran. Those were followed by street protests against the clerical system after the plane disaster.

Tension between Tehran and Washington has ratcheted higher since 2018, when the United States withdrew from the Iran nuclear pact signed with world powers and reimposed sanctions, and erupted into the tit-for-tat military strikes this month.

(With input from Reuters)