Published August 15, 2026
Qatar’s Foreign Ministry has denied Iranian claims that three Iranian pilots are secretly detained after their plane was shot down during hostilities earlier this year.
A ministry spokesperson on Saturday expressed surprise at the Iranian officials’ “misleading statements” and reaffirmed that Qatari forces had not detained any surviving aircrew members.
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“We are surprised by the misleading statements regarding the Iranian pilot as diplomatic efforts continue,” Qatari Foreign Ministry Spokesman Majid Al-Ansari said, according to colleagues on Al Jazeera Arabic.
His statement followed demands from the public in Tehran for the airman’s release. According to Iran’s Fars News Agency, Iranian military commander General Mohammad Bagherzadeh said in a letter to the International Committee of the Red Cross that three pilots, Javad Salehi, Abdulmadjid Dashtian, and Omran Behravesian, were captured alive after their Su-24 fighter jet crashed in March.
Bagherzadeh said the airmen had been isolated for six months without access to their families or diplomatic representatives, and called for international humanitarian intervention. Iran had previously acknowledged that one pilot was killed and others were missing after a mission to Qatar, but details about their alleged capture had not been made public until now.
Doha confirmed that the Qatar Air Defense Force had established contact with the aircraft after it illegally entered Qatari airspace in March. After receiving no response to the warning, Qatari forces engaged the target. Search and rescue teams later recovered the body of pilot Majid Kazemi and coordinated with Iranian authorities to repatriate the body.
The military engagement took place during an attack on Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base, the largest U.S. military installation in the region, where U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) personnel are stationed. In early March, the Qatari Ministry of Defense reported that it had shot down two Iranian Sukhoi Su-24 bombers, marking the first time a Gulf state had reported the downing of an Iranian aircraft during the conflict.
The interception came amid a widespread wave of retaliatory attacks across the Gulf after hostilities broke out on February 28. A ceasefire was brokered in April with Pakistan as the first mediator, temporarily halting large-scale fighting, but peace framework negotiations collapsed in June. This led to sporadic clashes near the Strait of Hormuz and new attacks on shipping and infrastructure in the region.
Despite this conflict, Qatar remains actively involved as the primary mediator, pushing for a negotiated solution between Iran and the United States.
The diplomatic tensions come as broader peace efforts face difficulties ahead of a key deadline. A 60-day negotiation period set out under a mid-June memorandum expired on Monday with little direct negotiations, leaving maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz at a standstill.
US President Donald Trump told an audience in New York on Friday that Iran was “suffering a very bad defeat” and threatened to “soon declare the Strait of Hormuz American territory.”
Tehran immediately rejected the statement on Saturday.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi wrote on X that the strategic waterway “cannot be captured by tweets or aircraft carriers” and warned that Iran would continue to tighten its blockade until the US accepted “the reality of defeat.”
