A senior Iranian military commander has urged Qatari authorities to allow a fact-finding team to enter the Persian Gulf kingdom and launch an investigation into the whereabouts of the three Iranian pilots, whose fighter jets were shot down when returning from a mission against a US base in March.
“The Qatari government should allow and facilitate the entry of the Iran Air Force fact-finding team rather than deny the detention of Iranian pilots,” Commander of the Missing-in-Action Search Committee of Iran’s Armed Forces General Staff, Brigadier General Seyyed Mohammad Bagherzadeh, said on Sunday.
He added that a team of elite experts from the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF) has been waiting for months to obtain permission to enter Qatar and conduct a field investigation.
“This is while the preparations for the return of our brave pilots to the country have not been made due to the reluctance and unwillingness of Qatari officials,” Bagherzadeh stated.
The senior Iranian military commander further advised the Qatari government to allow the IRIAF fact-finding team to depart for Doha, rather than deny the matter and block the revelation of the truth.
He once again called upon the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to follow up on the cases of the Iranian fighter pilots.
Bagherzadeh finally argued that the Kuwaiti government has also taken a position similar to that of Qatar, and refuses to provide any information about the fate of four Iranians captured in the country.
On Saturday, Bagherzadeh said Qatari forces captured three Iranian pilots, identified as Javad Salehi, Abdolmajid Dashtian, and Omran Behraveshian, alive during an operation in response to the recent US-Israeli war of aggression against the Islamic Republic.
He made the remarks in a letter addressed to the President of the ICRC, Mirjana Spoljaric.
According to Bagherzadeh, following the start of the US and Israeli strikes against Iran in late February, some of which were launched from US bases in the region, two Iranian Army Sukhoi Su-24 fighter jets flew to Qatar on March 2 to conduct a military mission.
The fighter jets were hit by the “enemy’s air defense” on the way back, and the pilots ejected, he said.
While one of the four Iranian pilots in the jets died, the rest were captured alive by Qatari forces.
The body of the fallen Iranian pilot, Majid Kazemi, was returned to Iran and buried in the southern city of Shiraz in late July.
Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari later denied the assertions, stating that Doha is surprised by the statements amid ongoing diplomatic efforts aimed at de-escalating regional tensions.
On February 28, Israel and the US launched joint attacks on Tehran and other Iranian cities, assassinating the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, military commanders, as well as civilians, and destroying military installations as well as critical civilian infrastructure.
Iran responded with waves of missile and drone attacks targeting Israel and US bases and assets across the region.
