A senior Iranian military official urged Qatar Sunday to allow an Iranian team into the country to investigate the fate of pilots Tehran says were captured by Qatari forces, a claim denied by Doha.
Doha said on Saturday that its search and rescue teams had found the remains of one pilot after Iranian aircraft violated Qatari airspace in March and failed to respond to attempts to contact them.
In a statement posted on X, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majid al-Ansari also expressed surprise at what he called “misleading statements” at a time when diplomatic efforts were under way to de-escalate tensions in the region.
Qatar said it had contacted Iran to coordinate the handover of the remains and had invited Tehran to review details of its search and rescue operations, but had received no response.
Mohammad Bagherzadeh, commander of the Committee for the Search for Missing Persons of Iran’s Armed Forces General Staff, said an Iranian Air Force expert and fact-finding team had been waiting for months to enter Qatar, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
Bagherzadeh accused Qatari officials of repeatedly delaying the investigation and preventing the pilots’ return to Iran. He called for the International Committee of the Red Cross to urgently follow up on the case.
He also said Kuwait was similarly withholding information about the fate of four Iranians held in Kuwait.
In May, Iran said the four were affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards and had been on a maritime patrol before entering Kuwaiti territorial waters because of a navigation disruption.
Kuwait has said the four were suspected of planning hostile actions against the country.
