Qatar Sponsors Deal to Release Iranian Revolutionary Guard Prisoners in Syria

Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has revealed that Qatar paid millions of dollars to free 57 Revolutionary Guards captured in Syria by an armed group.

In a speech to a group of his supporters in the port of Deir Ezzor in the southern Iranian province of Bushehr, Ahmadinejad said that a Revolutionary Guard bus in Syria was ambushed by an armed opposition group in 2012 when it was on its way to the Sayeda Zeinab Shrine in southern Damascus.

Ahmadinejad added that Iran resorted to Qatar to mediate after all attempts to release Revolutionary Guard members failed, noting that Tehran feared beheading captives and posting videos of them, which would reflect on the Iranian side, according to Russia Today.

The former Iranian president said that after some time, Qatar was able to mediate the release of the Revolutionary Guards after the former Emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, paid $57 million for their release.

Ahmadinejad confirmed that he had asked the former Emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, to pay the amount, which Iran would later return. He pointed out that the Emir of Qatar then refused to take the sum and returned the check to the Iranian Foreign Minister, saying, “I did this for my brothers without charge,” as the former Iranian president said.

On Tuesday, Qatar’s new ambassador to Moscow, Ahmed bin Nasser Al-Thani, said that his country’s initiative to launch a new trilateral consultative platform on the Syrian crisis without Iran’s participation is not aimed at limiting its role in Syria.

In a statement to the Russian newspaper Kommersant, he said that Iran’s absence from the Qatari-Turkish-Russian tripartite consultative platform should not be considered a reflection of the position of Iran, which is important only that there are problems that need urgent measures to resolve, especially the tragic humanitarian conditions that our brothers in Syria are suffering from.