Iran's foreign ministry said on Monday it will consider three missing pilots to be prisoners in Qatar, despite Doha's denials, until it clarifies their fate. Tehran has said the Iranians went missing while carrying out an operation against the United States' Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar on March 2, shortly after the outbreak of the Middle East war. On Saturday, Iranian authorities alleged for the first time that the pilots had been captured in Qatar, after previously saying one pilot had been killed and three others were missing following their sortie. "It is imperative to obtain clarification on their situation," foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei told a weekly press briefing. "Until the pilots' situation is clarified, we consider them prisoners and will spare no effort to shed light on their fate." Qatar denies holding the pilots and said an invitation had been sent to Iran "to be briefed on the details of the search and rescue operations in April, but the Iranian side has yet to respond". Last month, Iran's military said it had retrieved the body of pilot Majid Kazemi, who was killed during the attack on Al Udeid, the largest US military base in the Middle East. In early March, Qatar's defense ministry said it had shot down two Iranian Sukhoi Su-24 bombers but it was not immediately clear whether they were the same aircraft referred to by Iran. Qatar, which took part in mediation efforts to end the fighting, came under fire after the truce broke down, reporting attacks on its territory and on at least one Qatari tanker transiting the strait.
