Iranian official urges Qatar to transfer detained pilots to hospital on land

An Iranian military official calls on Qatar to transfer detained Iranian pilots to a hospital on land, saying they were being held on water and were in “poor physical condition,” Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reports.

Mohammad Bagherzadeh, commander of the Committee for the Search for Missing Persons of Iran’s Armed Forces General Staff, says the location where the pilots were being held was unsuitable, and requests that the International Committee of the Red Cross send an air ambulance to Qatar to expedite the return of injured and sick detainees to Iran.

Qatar denied last week that it was holding Iranian pilots, saying they had violated Qatari airspace earlier this year and failed to respond to attempts to contact them.

Doha said it had contacted Iran to coordinate the handover of the remains of one pilot and had invited Tehran to review details of its search and rescue operations, but had received no response.

A Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday that the invitation remained open for an Iranian delegation to visit over the issue of the pilots.

In his latest statement, Bagherzadeh welcomes Qatar’s decision to receive a team of Iranian experts, and calls on Doha to provide them with the necessary cooperation.

Bagherzadeh previously said an Iranian Air Force expert and fact-finding team had been waiting for months to enter Qatar, and accused Qatari officials of repeatedly delaying the investigation.