Riyadh // Pilgrims from Iran will travel to Saudi Arabia for the Haj this year after the missing last pilgrimage amid tensions between the regional rivals.
The arrangements were completed after a meeting with an Iranian delegation on February 23, Saudi Arabia’s official SPA news agency said.
“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,” SPA said.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency said on March 5 that the country would send about 80,000 pilgrims this year.
Iranian pilgrims did not participate in the Haj last year for the first time in nearly three decades, after Riyadh and Tehran failed to agree on security and logistics.
Relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which back rival sides in several Middle East conflicts, worsened after hundreds of people including Iranians died in a crush at the Haj in 2015.
Riyadh said 769 pilgrims were killed – the highest haj death toll since a crush in 1990. Tehran said 464 of its citizens were among the dead and accused the Haj organisers of incompetence.
Ties worsened in January last year when protesters stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran in response to Saudi Arabia’s execution of a Shiite cleric convicted of terrorism, leading Riyadh to sever diplomatic ties.
* Agence France-Presse and Reuters
