The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Iran has denounced this Sunday that the authorities of Qatar would be "obstructing" the procedures to achieve the release of three combat pilots supposedly held by this country during the first weeks of the war against the United States and Israel. Doha rejects these accusations, while Tehran claims that an elite team from its Air Force should be allowed to access Qatari territory to "investigate" directly on the ground.
The commander of the Missing Persons Search Commission of the General Staff, General Mohamad Bagherzade, has stated in remarks disseminated by the Tasnim news agency that "Instead of denying the matter and obstructing the search for the truth, the Qatari government should allow the team of experts and investigators from the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force to depart for Qatar."
Bagherzade has emphasized that this "elite" group has been "waiting for several months" to move and conduct a "ground investigation." In his view, "Due to the constant sabotage and delay by the Qatari authorities, the conditions for the return of our brave pilots to the country have not been met."
The military official has also requested the "immediate follow-up" of the case by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which he has asked to be able to interview the Iranian pilots in Qatar as soon as possible and to inform the Islamic Republic of Iran "of the conditions for their rapid release in accordance with humanitarian missions and bilateral cooperation."
These statements come after Iranian authorities announced this Saturday that three of their combat pilots would have been captured by Qatar in the first weeks of the joint offensive by the United States and Israel against the country.
According to a statement from the commission, on March 2, two Sukhoi 24 fighter jets "crashed" in Qatari territory after successfully completing a mission against a military base. In the incident, one of the pilots died, while the others would have been "captured alive by Qatari forces."
On that same day, Qatar reported the downing of two Iranian aircraft, without providing further details about what happened until this Saturday, when the spokesperson for Foreign Affairs, Majed al Ansari, confirmed that the search and rescue teams located the body of one of the pilots and that there were failed attempts to repatriate the body to Iran due to the lack of communication with the Iranian authorities. However, the spokesperson has denied that the other three military personnel have been detained.