TEHRAN – Iran’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Friday urging the International Committee of the Red Cross to form a fact finding committee to investigate issue of four Iranian diplomats kidnapped in Lebanon on July 5, 1982.

Friday was the 37th anniversary of the abduction of four Iranian diplomats - Seyyed Mohsen Mousavi, Ahmad Motevasselian, Kazem Akhavan and Taqi Rastegar Moqaddam - in Barbara checkpoint in northern Lebanon in 1982.

The statement said, “As it has been announced for several times over the past years, evidence shows that the kidnapped diplomats in Lebanon were delivered to the Zionist regime of Israel’s forces and following that they were transferred to the occupied lands and they are now held in prisons of this illegitimate regime.”

“Given the fact that Lebanon was under the U.S.-backed Israeli occupation at that time, the Islamic Republic of Iran holds the Zionist regime and its supporters legally and politically responsible for the abduction and the terrorist move,” the statement added.

The statement also praised the Lebanese government’s actions in investigating the case and called for more efforts by the UN, ICRC and other international bodies to continue efforts to reveal destiny of the kidnapped diplomats.

“To this end, the Islamic Republic once again underlines its previous proposal that a fact-finding committee is formed by the International Committee of the Red Cross to follow up the issue,” the statement said.

NA/PA