Malaysia strikes deal with international police deployment to MH17 crash site

Malaysia has stricken an agreement with Ukrainian rebels, who control the area around the MH17 crash site, to allow a group of international police personnel to enter the area to protect the international investigators, according to a statement issued by Prime Minister's office on Sunday.

It said that Alexander Borodai, leader of the Ukrainian rebels, agreed Sunday to allow a deployment of international police personnel to enter the crash site, after the earlier agreement he made with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.

According to the statement, Najib had spoken Sunday to his counterparts of the Netherlands and Australia, and all of them agreed to work closely in deploying the police personnel.

It said that 68 Malaysian police personnel would leave Kuala Lumpur for the crash site on Wednesday as part of the international deployment.

"Malaysian officials are discussing the details of the police deployment with the Netherlands and Australia," it said, adding that Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman had been speaking to his international counterparts and officials from the Ukrainian government on the legal and diplomatic framework for the deployment.

Najib said Sunday that the Netherlands, Australia and Malaysia had formed a coalition to secure the site.