Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s admission, which came at a summit in New Delhi on Wednesday, represents the first time an Iranian official referred to earlier claims from Tehran that a technical malfunction downed the Ukraine International Airlines flight as a lie. The shoot down — and subsequent days of denials that a missile had downed it — sparked days of angry protests in the country.

Rouhani did not elaborate.

European forces have been deployed alongside Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan. France also maintains a naval base in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, while Britain has opened a base in the island nation of Bahrain.

Zarif, speaking in New Delhi at the Raisina Dialogue, blamed U.S. “ignorance” and “arrogance” for “fueling mayhem” in the Middle East. However, he also acknowledged the anger Iranians felt over the plane shoot down.

However, he said that he and Rouhani only learned that a missile had down the flight on Friday, raising new questions over how much power Iran’s civilian government has in its Shiite theocracy. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which shot down the aircraft, knew immediately afterward its missile downed the airline.

The Guard is answerable only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is expected to preside over Friday prayers in Iran for the first time in years over anger about the crash.

But there was a sense that the chance for immediate further retaliation by Iran against the U.S. may have lifted. Hossein Salami, the head of the Guard, said in a speech that Iran’s “war project was closed since the people stood” against American pressure.

“Now, we are moving toward peace,” Salami said.

That contradicted Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Guard’s aerospace program, who blamed the U.S. in part for the shootdown and vowed further revenge.

“Certainly these consecutive blows will continue and we will avenge the blood of these martyrs on them,” said Hajizadeh, who only days earlier apologized and said “I wish I were dead.”

The black-and-white surveillance footage obtained by the AP, filmed off a monitor by a mobile phone, appears to be taken near the town of Bidkaneh, northwest of Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport. That’s the airport the Ukraine International Airlines flight took off from Jan. 8.

The two-minutes of footage purports to show one missile streaking across the sky and exploding near the plane. Ten seconds later, another missile is fired and explodes near the aircraft. A ball of flames then falls from the sky out of frame.

The footage corresponds with AP reporting, appears genuine and matches geographic features of the area.

Also on Wednesday, Iranian state media said the British ambassador to Iran, Robert Macaire, had left the country. Macaire left after being given what the state-run IRNA news agency described as “prior notice,” without elaborating. Britain’s Foreign Office insisted Macaire’s trip to London was “routine, business as usual” and was planned before his arrest in Tehran. It said he planned return to Iran.

Macaire had been held after attending a candlelight vigil Saturday in Tehran over Iran shooting down the Ukrainian jetliner. The vigil quickly turned into an anti-government protests and Macaire left shortly after, only to be arrested by police.

In Ukraine, forensic analysts expect to start decoding next week the flight data recorders recovered from the downed plane. The recorders, known as black boxes, have yet to be transported to Ukraine.

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Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Schmall from New Delhi. Associated Press writer s Nadia Ahmed and Jill Lawless in London, Yuras Karmanau in Kyiv, Ukraine, Lorne Cook in Brussels, Geir Moulson in Berlin and Frances D’Emilio in Rome contributed to this report.