TEHRAN (FNA)- The Islamic Republic takes the Zionist regime of Israel responsible for the healthiness and fate of the four Iranian diplomats abducted in Lebanon in 1982, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki stressed on Tuesday.
"The Qods occupying regime should directly take the responsibility for the health and the lives of our country"s four kidnapped diplomats," Mottaki said.
"We urge all international organizations and circles, specially the respectable UN Secretary-General, to fulfill their legal responsibility within the framework of our previous correspondence and consultations and call for an accelerated announcement of the results to eventually relieve their families of increasing anxiety," he added.
The Iranian top diplomat also criticized international bodies and related parties, specially the Zionist regime of Israel, for their negligence over the issue.
The four Iranian diplomats went missing in Lebanon in 1982 during an Israeli invasion of the country.
The then charge d"affaires of the Iranian Embassy in Beirut Seyed Mohsen Mousavi, military attaché Ahmad Motevaselian, embassy technician Taghi Rastegar Moghadam and journalist of the Islamic republic news agency Kazzem Akhavan were kidnapped by the Lebanese mercenary army - also known as the Falangists - at a gunpoint in northern Lebanon in 1982 and were later handed over to Israeli army.
Israel has released contradictory reports on the issue. The Zionist regime alleged in a statement last year that the diplomats had never been surrendered to Israel. Elsewhere it claimed in response to a request put forward by the Lebanese Hezbollah group that the four are already dead.
Earlier in January 2009, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said that Iran had received a report from the Zionist regime which said the kidnapped Iranian diplomats had not been transferred to Tel Aviv and laid the blame on the Lebanese mercenary army affiliated with Israel.
In reaction to the report, the spokesman said at the time that the report "will not relieve the Zionist regime of its responsibility" for the healthiness and safe repatriation of the diplomats.