IRAN accused Qatar on Sunday of thwarting efforts to work out what happened to three pilots Tehran says were captured during the Middle East war, though the Gulf state has denied detaining them.
The Islamic republic had previously reported one pilot killed and others missing after a sortie to Qatar in March, but had not claimed at the time that any of them had been captured.
“A team of experts from the Iranian Air Force has been waiting for several months to travel to Qatar to conduct an on-site investigation,” said General Mohammad Bagherzadeh of the Iranian armed forces. “However, due to persistent delays by Qatari authorities, the return of our brave pilots to their homeland remains impossible,” he added, according to the Tasnim news agency.
He called on Doha to authorise the team to travel to Qatar. Bagherzadeh had accused Qatar on Saturday of having captured three Iranian pilots who were carrying out an operation against the United States’ Al Udeid air base in early March and demanded their release.
Qatar denied holding the pilots and said an invitation had been sent to Iran “to be briefed on the details of the search & rescue operations in April, but the Iranian side has yet to respond”.
AFP
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