Iran calls on world to press Israel to release abducted diplomats

The 31st anniversary of the kidnapping of three Iranian diplomats and a reporter in Lebanon in 1982 was commemorated during a ceremony held in Beirut.
A number of Iranian and Lebanese officials attended the event.

In a speech during the ceremony, Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon Ghazanfar Roknabadi said that there was evidence that the diplomats were alive and were being held by the Zionist regime.

He also called on the international community to pressure Israel into releasing them as soon as possible.

Four Iranian nationals, chargé d’affaires Mohsen Mousavi, military attaché of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ahmad Motevasellian, Taqi Rastegar Moqaddam, a diplomat from the embassy, and Kazem Akhavan, a reporter and photographer from the Islamic Republic News Agency, were captured by a Phalangist militia while traveling to southern Lebanon in 1982, then handed over to the Zionist regime and transferred to a prison in the occupied Palestine.