Iran’s Deputy Justice Minister for International Affairs announced their release on Monday, noting that the sailors have already arrived in Iran.

Qatar released eight Iranian sailors out of a group of several others who were imprisoned for entering the Gulf state’s territorial waters, according to Iran’s Deputy Justice Minister for International Affairs Askar Jalalian who announced their release on Monday.

Jalalian also noted that the sailors, who are mainly the southern provinces of Bushehr, Hormozgan and Khuzestan, have already arrived in Iran.

The Iranian official said the sailors from the southern provinces would enter the territorial waters of neighbouring countries “due to lack of information or because their vessels are caught in storms.”

Citing Jalalian, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported that the sailors are the third group released and transferred to Iran this year. The releases took place following close coordination between the Iranian embassy in Qatar and the Ministry of Justice.

The report did not disclose further details on the duration of the sailors’ imprisonment.

In April last year, Qatar released 17 Iranians who were detained for unintentionally entering Qatari seas, though the timing of the men’s arrest and the length of their confinement were not disclosed.

Separately in May 2023, two Iranian prisoners—a woman and a young man below the age of 20—detained in Qatar were sent to prisons in Iran. Both were jailed in the Gulf state for drug offences.

Iran’s former ambassador to Qatar, Hamidreza Dehghani, told IRNA in May last year that there were 87 Iranians in Qatari prisons due to drug-related offences. He said the Iranian embassy in Doha had taken good measures to exchange and transfer prisoners to Iran to continue serving their sentences.

In 2022, Qatar agreed to extradite 28 Iranian prisoners following the visit of late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. The former president was killed in a helicopter crash alongside foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in May.

Meanwhile, the Gulf state has been serving as an interlocutor between Iran and the United States in hopes of reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Qatar’s shuttle diplomacy between both sides led to a historic agreement on September 18, resulting in the release of five Iranians and five Americans, as well as the unfreezing of six billion dollars in Iranian assets overseas.