Tony Abbott and Vladimir Putin discuss international probe into MH17

THE two leaders held a telephone conversation to discuss organising an independent international probe into the downing of MH17.

Photographs left by Jerzy Dycznynski and Angela Rudhart-Dyczynski who lost their daughter Fatima.This photo taken on July 26, 2014 shows flowers, left by parents of an Australian victim of the crash, laid on a piece of the Malaysia Airlines plane MH17, near the village of Hrabove (Grabovo), in the Donetsk region. Ukraine sought on July 25 to avoid a political crisis after the shock resignation of its prime minister, as fighting between the army and rebels close to the Malaysian airliner crash site claimed over a dozen more lives. Dutch and Australian forces were being readied on July 26 for possible deployment to secure the rebel-held crash site of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in east Ukraine where many victims' remains still lie nine days after the disaster claimed 298 lives. AFP PHOTO/ BULENT KILIC

TONY Abbott and Russian President Vladimir Putin have discussed how an international probe could be set up into the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in Ukraine, in which 28 Australians were killed.

The two leaders held a telephone conversation “to exchange their views on aspects of organising an independent and objective international inquiry”, the Kremlin said in a statement.

They also stressed the need for compliance with a UN Security Council resolution calling for full access to the crash site and cooperation by all countries with the investigation.

The two leaders discussed the probe as forensic experts identified the first of the 298 people killed when MH17 was shot down over Ukraine last week.

“Today the first victim of the flight MH17 disaster was identified,” the justice ministry said in a statement.

“It’s a Dutch citizen and the victim’s family and mayor of where they lived have been informed.” The ministry did not publicly release the identity of the victim. The Dutch are in charge of identifying all the victims from the July 17 disaster over rebel-held Ukraine, 193 of whom were Dutch.

“The team of 200 specialists is busy with the identification process, but warns that it can take months for all the victims to be identified,” the statement said.

Couple’s heartbreak at MH17 site

Some bodies remain at the crash site but 227 coffins with the remains of people of 17 nationalities have already been flown back to the Netherlands for identification.

Earlier Ester Naber, of the Netherlands’ National Team of Frensic Experts (LTBO), said that the number of coffins was not representative of the number of bodies that had been found.

“It is graphic, but the reality unfortunately is there are a lot of coffins with one body in one coffin, but there are others with only human remains,” she said.

All remains have yet to be recovered from the crash site, with the Netherlands and Australia seeking a mandate to send troops to secure the area amid ongoing fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces. Foreign Minster Julie Bishop, who attended the final repatriation of the Australian bodies into The Netherlands on Saturday, will today return to Kiev as more than 100 AFP officers in Kharkiv prepare for a mission to secure the MH17 site.

Mr Abbott has accused the rebels of attempting a cover-up at the crash site to hide evidence. He has urged the world to press Moscow to help uncover the details of the downing of the plane, saying Russia could not “wash its hands” of the incident.