Iranian President Hassan Rohani has welcomed the return of four Iranian border officials who had been held hostage since February by the group Jeysh-ol-Adl group, while calling on government agencies to persist relentlessly in determining the fate of Jamshid Danaifar, a fifth hostage whom the group claimed to have executed.

Today, four of the soldiers who had been taken hostage while on border duty in the Sistan-Baluchistan region were back on Iranian soil, after the government enlisted the support of Sunni clergy and elders in the region to secure their release.

Rohani said: “The Islamic Republic’s stance against terrorism and violence is firm, principled and unchanging.”

He further added that he hopes that terrorism and violence are uprooted in the region and “the air of suspicion and distrust fades out forever.”

Jeysh-ol-Adl, which says it fights for the rights of Sunni minorities in Iran, had called for the release of hundreds of its members whom it claims are imprisoned by the Islamic Republic.

Last November, the group claimed responsibility for the killing of 10 Iranian security forces in the border regions of Iran and Pakistan.

Radio Zamaneh