Bagherzadeh: Qatar should allow Iranian Air Force experts to determine Iranian pilots' fate

Pars Today — The commander of Iran’s Missing Persons Search Committee at the General Staff of the Armed Forces, responding to Qatar’s denial that Iranian pilots were being held captive, said that a team of highly experienced Iranian Air Force experts has been waiting for months to enter Qatar and conduct an on-site investigation.

According to Pars Today, citing IRNA, following Brigadier General Bagherzadeh’s letter to the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross calling for the status of the Iranian pilots held captive in Qatar to be urgently investigated, and the subsequent denial by Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Bagherzadeh rejected the Qatari official’s remarks.

He said that instead of denying the issue and obstructing efforts to establish the truth, the Qatari government should allow a fact-finding and expert team from the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force to travel to Qatar.

Bagherzadeh added that a team of highly experienced Iranian Air Force experts has been waiting for months to enter Qatar and conduct an on-site investigation. However, he said, repeated obstruction and delaying tactics by Qatari officials have so far prevented the return of the Iranian pilots to their country.

He once again stressed the Red Cross’s role in urgently pursuing the matter and warned that Kuwait has also so far avoided providing information about the fate of four Iranians held captive by Kuwait in a similar case.