Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi has called on Turkey and Qatar to help release Iranian pilgrims abducted in Syria, the local media reported on Sunday.
In phone conversations held with his Turkish and Qatari counterparts Ahmet Davutoglu and Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani on Saturday, Salehi requested both countries to intervene immediately to secure the release of abducted Iranian pilgrims.
Earlier on Saturday, 48 Iranian pilgrims who were traveling on a bus from Damascus International Airport to the Hazrat Zainab shrine on the outskirts of Damascus were abducted by armed insurgents.
In a statement released later on Saturday, Iran's Consulate in Syria said it was pursuing the fate of Iranian nationals in collaboration with the Syrian security forces.
This is not the first time Iranians have been abducted by armed gunmen in Syria.
In January, a group of armed assailants attacked a bus and abducted 11 Iranian pilgrims on the road between Damascus and the northwestern city of Aleppo.
In December 2011, armed insurgents also kidnapped five engineers in the city of Homs while they were on their way to work at the city's Jandar power plant being built by Iranian technicians. Two other Iranians who tried to determine the fate of the engineers were also abducted.