Iran pilgrims to join this year’s Haj, Saudis say

 Iranian pilgrims will participate in this year’s annual Haj, Saudi Arabia said on Friday, despite ruptured ties between the regional rivals.

For the first time in nearly three decades Iran’s pilgrims — which would have numbered about 60,000 — did not attend last year’s Haj after Riyadh and Tehran failed to agree on security and logistics.

Tensions remain as Saudi Arabia repeatedly accuses Iran of fuelling conflicts by supporting armed Shiite movements in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Bahrain.

But after talks between the two sides, the Iranians will join this year’s ritual which takes place at the beginning of September.

“The Ministry of Haj and the Iranian organisation have completed all the necessary measures to ensure Iranian pilgrims perform Haj 1438 according to the procedures followed by all Muslim countries,” the official Saudi Press Agency said, referring to this year in the Islamic calendar.

The Haj ministry said that the kingdom, home to Islam’s holiest sites, welcomes “all pilgrims from all the different nationalities and backgrounds”.

Iran rejects accusations of regional aggression.

Although the verbal sparring continued, Saudi media reported in December that the Saudi minister in charge of pilgrimages, Mohammad Bentin, had invited Iran to discuss arrangements for this year’s Haj.

An Iranian delegation visited Saudi Arabia in February for talks with Bentin.

In early March, Iran said there had been progress.

“Most of the questions up for discussion have been resolved and a couple of issues are remaining,” Iran’s Isna news agency quoted Ali Gazi Askar, the Iranian supreme leader’s representative for Haj affairs, as saying.

“If those questions are resolved, we hope pilgrims will soon be sent to Saudi Arabia.”

A major issue was compensation for the families of hundreds of people killed in a stampede during the 2015 Haj. Iran says 464 of its citizens died in the disaster.

More than 1.8 million faithful took part in last year’s Haj. The pilgrimage is one of the five pillars of Islam and all Muslims who can must perform it at least once in their lives.

Iranian pilgrims have for the past two years not attended Umrah, the lesser pilgrimage to Makkah and Madinah in western Saudi Arabia which occurs outside Haj.

Tehran suspended its Umrah participation over the sexual assault of two Iranian teenage boy pilgrims by Saudi police at Jeddah airport in early 2015.

Gazi Askar said Iran had raised this issue as well, and if the culprits were punished, “the lesser Haj will also be restored”.

Despite agreement on the Haj, Riyadh maintains its criticism of Iran, as highlighted in talks on Tuesday between Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman and US President Donald Trump.

The two leaders “noted the importance of confronting Iran’s destabilising regional activities”, the White House said

source : gulfnews