Iran asks Qatar to allow fact-finding team over pilot arrests
Commander of the Missing Persons Search Committee of the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Mohammad Bagherzadeh, on Sunday (16/8) asked the Qatari government to allow a fact-finding team from the Iranian Armed Forces Air Force to visit Qatar, rather than denying that it had arrested three Iranian pilots last March.
He made the statement in a release published on the committee’s website after Qatar on Saturday (15/8) denied his claim that it had detained the Iranian pilots.
Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Majed Al Ansari issued the denial through a social media post after Bagherzadeh earlier the same day said that Qatari forces had captured three Iranian pilots whose fighter jet was shot down while returning from a military mission against a United States base in Qatar last March.
Responding to Al Ansari’s denial, the Iranian commander said that a team comprising experts from the Iranian Armed Forces Air Force had been waiting for several months to be allowed into Qatar to conduct an on-the-ground investigation.
However, due to continuous obstruction and delays by the Qatari authorities, conditions have not yet made it possible for the Iranian pilots to be repatriated to their country.
He asked the Qatari government to allow the Iranian team to enter Qatar, rather than denying the matter and imposing restrictions on the fact-finding process.
In a letter published on Saturday, Bagherzadeh said Qatari forces captured three Iranian pilots whose fighter jet was shot down while returning from a military mission against a US base in Qatar last March. The Iranian commander said a fourth pilot was killed.
On 28 February, Israel and the US launched a joint attack on Tehran and other cities in Iran, killing Iran’s supreme leader at the time, Ali Khamenei, as well as a number of military commanders and civilians. Iran retaliated with waves of missile and drone strikes targeting Israel and US bases and assets in the Middle East region.
The body of the Iranian pilot who was killed, Majid Kazemi, was repatriated to Iran and buried in the city of Shiraz, southern Iran, in late July.