By The Tripoli Post

A Libyan foreign ministry spokesman announced Tuesday that all the seven Iranian Red Crescent workers who were kidnapped in the Eastern city of Benghazi on August 1 are alive and healthy.

The spokesman told reporters on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) ministerial meeting in Tehran on Tuesday: �All the Iranian hostages are alive and healthy. We are trying to secure their freedom or their meeting with their family members and we have discussed this issue with Iranian officials."

On Monday, Mohammed Yousef al-Magariaf, the president of Libya's national assembly said he has personally pursued the case of the abducted workers, and added, "All of these individuals are healthy and will be freed soon."

In a telephone conversation with Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, Mr Magariaf added: �The government of Libya has adopted all the necessary measures to immediately release the Iranian nationals and has pursued the issue with high sensitivity."

Earlier this month, a senior Iranian foreign ministry official said that Iran and Libya had agreed to jointly pursue the freedom of aid workers.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Consular, Parliamentary and Expatriates' Affairs Hassan Qashqavi meanwhile has announced that during his visit to Libya to discuss the freedom of the abductees, Iran and Libya had set up a joint coordinating committee to pursue the fate of kidnapped Iranian nationals.

The Libyan Red Crescent said in a statement earlier this month that the seven-member delegation from the Iranian Red Crescent that was visiting Benghazi and heading to the Tibesti hotel, had been intercepted and kidnapped by armed men.

The members of the delegation that arrived in Libya early August at the invitation of the Libyan Red Crescent were loaded into a different car and whisked away to an unknown location, the statement added. The driver of the vehicle, a local volunteer, was let free.

 

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