Iran urged Qatar Sunday to allow an Iranian team into the country to investigate the fate of pilots Tehran says were captured by Qatari forces, a claim denied by Doha.
Doha said on Saturday that its search and rescue teams had found the remains of one pilot after Iranian aircraft violated Qatari airspace in March and failed to respond to attempts to contact them.
In a statement posted on X, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majid al-Ansari also expressed surprise at what he called "misleading statements" at a time when diplomatic efforts were under way to de-escalate tensions in the region.
Qatar said it had contacted Iran to coordinate the handover of the remains and had invited Tehran to review details of its search and rescue operations, but had received no response.
Mohammad Bagherzadeh, commander of the Committee for the Search for Missing Persons of Iran's Armed Forces General Staff, said an Iranian Air Force expert and fact-finding team had been waiting for months to enter Qatar, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
Bagherzadeh accused Qatari officials of repeatedly delaying the investigation and preventing the pilots' return to Iran. He called for the International Committee of the Red Cross to urgently follow up on the case.
"A team of experts from the Iranian Air Force has been waiting for several months to travel to Qatar to conduct an on-site investigation," he said.
"However, due to persistent delays by Qatari authorities, the return of our brave pilots to their homeland remains impossible," he added, according to the Tasnim news agency.
He also said Kuwait was similarly withholding information about the fate of four Iranians held in Kuwait.
In May, Iran said the four were affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards and had been on a maritime patrol before entering Kuwaiti territorial waters because of a navigation disruption.
Kuwait has said the four were suspected of planning hostile actions against the country.
Last month, Iran's military said it had retrieved the body of pilot Majid Kazemi, who was killed during the attack on Al Udeid Air Base.
The largest U.S. military base in the Middle East, it hosts forward elements of U.S. Central Command, as well as its air and special operations forces.
In early March, Qatar's Defense Ministry said it had shot down two Iranian Sukhoi Su-24 bombers.
It was not immediately clear whether they were the same aircraft referred to by Iran, as Qatar and other countries across the region faced retaliatory attacks following the U.S. and Israeli strikes that triggered the war.
It was the first time a Gulf country had reported shooting down an Iranian aircraft since the war broke out on Feb. 28.
The Middle East war broke out when the United States and Israel attacked Iran, which retaliated with attacks across the region.
Diplomatic efforts led to an April cease-fire that ended nearly 40 days of fighting, followed by the signing of a framework for peace talks in June that later collapsed.
Iran and the United States have since traded fire sporadically, with fighting mainly centred in southern Iran and around the Strait of Hormuz.
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 at least one Qatari tanker transiting the strait.
