POWs

Aug. 17 (UPI) — Iran has accused Qatar of holding three of its pilots for half a year in violation of international law, heightening tensions between the two nations and threatening to expand the war in the Middle East, despite Doha claiming not to have the pilots.

“Qatar’s government has exhausted its opportunity to delay and toy with the fate of three heroic Iranian pilots,” Maj. Gen. Ali Abdullahi, the newly appointed chief of staff of Iran’s Armed Forces, said in a statement Sunday.

“They must be released immediately and unconditionally and returned to the homeland.”

Four Iranian pilots in two SU-24s were shot down over Qatari airspace March 2, as Iran was attacking Al Udeid Air Base in response to joint Israeli-U.S. attacks on Iran days earlier that ignited the ongoing war. A Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson said that a search had been launched for their crews, but it was never stated that they had been found. Iran later announced that one of the four pilots had died in the attack.

On Saturday, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Bagherzadeh, head of the Iranian military’s committee for missing personnel, identified the remaining three pilots in a letter to the International Red Cross that accuses Qatar of violating articles of the Geneva Convention concerning the treatment of prisoners of war, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

Bagherzadeh accused Doha of denying the pilots contact with their families and Iranian authorities, citing Articles 70 and 78 of the Third Geneva Convention that states POWs have the right to submit complaints and requests to representatives who visit their place of captivity or to hold discussions and negotiations.

The letter urged the ICRC to address the situation.

“Qatar must know that Iran will not retreat from its proud pilot sons. The path for the presence of the expert team of the Islamic Republic of Iran must be facilitated as soon as possible,” Brig. Gen. Seyed Majid Mousavi, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Sunday in a statement.

“Continuing this trend will not be cost-free for Qatar, and any delay or obstruction will place a heavy responsibility on their shoulders.”

Qatar has denied the accusations. Majed Al Ansari, spokesperson for Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Qatar was not holding any Iranian pilots and had handed over the remains of one Iranian pilot that its search teams had found.

Qatar invited Iranian officials in April to visit Qatar and be briefed on the search-and-rescue operations, “but the Iranian side has yet to respond to the invitation,” he said in a statement Sunday.

RACH GIA, Vietnam — American senators who visited two prisons and a remote mountain area on Friday found no evidence of American POWs but came away impressed by Vietnam’s new spirit of cooperation.

The senators also returned with an appreciation of how hard it is to track down the missing in a land of jungles, hills and tropical rice paddies, a quarter-century after they disappeared.

Two of them, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Sen. Hank Brown (R-Colo.), flew to the wrong spot in pursuit of a tip that American servicemen had been seen there.

Despite the problems, Kerry, Brown and Sen. Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), said they sensed that the unprecedented cooperation they had obtained earlier in the week from officials in Hanoi was matched at the local level.

“I think in the last five days Vietnam proved its seriousness in answering questions and bent over backward in showing its willingness to help,” said Kerry, the head of a Senate committee on POWs and MIAs.

“I think in every regard today our expectations were met,” he said.

The three senators are visiting Southeast Asia to seek more information on the 2,265 Americans unaccounted for in Indochina since the Vietnam War.

Vietnam, which is seeking international help to rebuild its economy, hopes to end the trade and diplomatic embargo the United States imposed after the Communist north took over the south in 1975. Washington has said it won’t change its policy until Vietnam helps provide a full accounting of the missing.

After receiving cooperation from Vietnamese officials in Hanoi earlier in their trip, Kerry recommended that President Bush reward Vietnam.

The United States is not expected to normalize ties soon, but Bush could relax the trade embargo or do other financial favors for Vietnam.

Kerry and Brown flew by helicopter to the southwestern city of Rach Gia, where they spoke with officials and inmates of the local prison. No Americans were found, and there was no word that any had ever been seen.

Daschle visited a prison in An Dien, 75 miles west of Da Nang, and said he received good cooperation from Vietnamese officials.

Earlier Friday, Kerry and Brown flew to a small mountain near Chau Doc on the Cambodian border to look into a report that as late as February, 14 Americans were being held in a prison. They found they were at the wrong place.

Six South Korean activists who visited Ukraine in May to discuss the repatriation of North Korean prisoners of war (POWs) have been booked by police on charges of violating passport laws.

Jang Se-yul, who leads the Seoul-based North Korean defector group Gyeoreol Unification Solidarity, told Yonhap News Agency on Friday that Seoul’s foreign ministry reported the group to police on suspicion of violating the Passport Act.

The activists traveled to Ukraine from May 7-11 in an effort to prevent the forced repatriation of two North Korean POWs captured while fighting for Russia in the Kursk region in early 2025. The two have reportedly expressed their desire to go to South Korea.

During their visit, the activists met with officials at the Coordinating Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War under Ukraine’s defense ministry, calling for support for the POWs’ wishes and warning of the risks the soldiers would face if repatriated to North Korea.

Jang claimed that the foreign ministry had required recommendation letters from the unification minister and that they were unable to do so before departing for Ukraine due to a tight schedule.

Ukraine has been on South Korea’s travel ban list since February 2022.

The foreign ministry said South Koreans are advised to leave travel-banned countries unless they have obtained exceptional permission to use their passports, adding that those who fail to comply may face criminal charges.

It declined to comment further on the matter, citing the ongoing investigation.

Copyright (c) Yonhap News Agency prohibits its content from being redistributed or reprinted without consent, and forbids the content from being learned and used by artificial intelligence systems.