Qatar calls Iran's claims about pilots held in the emirate false

Tehran's assertions that Qatar is holding Iranian pilots do not correspond to reality.

This was stated by the official spokesman for the emirate's Foreign Ministry, Majid bin Mohammed Al-Ansari.

"These statements to the media are completely groundless, these are illogical assertions," he said, commenting on the Iranian side's words about the detained pilots. Al-Ansari emphasized that Iranian aircraft had intruded into Qatar's airspace in order to strike Doha and were shot down after the pilots failed to respond to warnings. According to him, on March 19 the remains of one of the pilots were found and subsequently handed over to the Iranian delegation. The search operation was completed on April 6. The Foreign Ministry spokesman added that Doha had invited an Iranian technical team to review the details of the search-and-rescue operation, but Tehran did not respond to the invitation, which is "still valid."

On August 15, the head of the committee for the search for missing persons of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Iran, Mohammad Bagherzadeh, said that three Iranian pilots had been taken prisoner by the Qatari military in March after their fighter jets crashed. He called on the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit the pilots and facilitate their release.

Source: TASS