Iranian envoy in Thailand says effort being made to free Thais held hostage by Hamas
The government of Iran has promised to work with other Middle Eastern countries to free Thai hostages held by Hamas militants, Iran's ambassador to Thailand Seyed Reza Nobakhti told Nation TV on Tuesday.
He added that Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian had spoken to his Qatari counterpart and their counterpart in Lebanon about measures for releasing the hostages.
“We have informed Palestinian officials to support the release of Thai people. because, personally, I believe that Thailand and Iran are brothers and sisters. We try to support them and we know they are innocent people. They happened to be in occupied land. It’s a dangerous area,” said the ambassador.
At the time of publication, Israeli military reports said at least 199 civilians and soldiers were taken hostage by the Islamist group, of which as many as 17 are Thai nationals.
At least 30 Thai nationals are reported to have been killed after the deadly attack on October 7 by Hamas. While there are no official reports of deaths of hostages from inside the Gaza Strip, the ambassador said that Thai people killed in Palestine were bombarded by Israeli rockets, saying Israel is killing innocent people.
Nobakhti said that Iran supports all liberation armies, all liberation groups in the world. “For example, we supported the people in Vietnam during the war against America. And now we are supporting Hamas in the fight against occupiers.”
Iran is not the lone supporter of the Hamas group, the ambassador said, adding there were other countries involved not known to the public. “If the regime of Israel continues to attack civilians, and carry on attacks against the people, for sure they would receive a destructive response from different parts out there, around the country, around Palestine.”
The ambassador said it would depend on Israel whether the war escalates further. He warned that if Israel continued with its military operations, “we will witness something else”.
Nobakhti clarified that Iran was not responsible for the Hamas organisation, claiming that the US had falsely implicated his nation because it wanted the conflict in the Middle East to persist so that it could keep selling weapons.
The envoy called for Israel to cease its operation, accusing it of “attempting to attack innocent civilians”. He said Iran wanted the conflict to end amicably.
