Iran says it will not allow its pilgrims to attend the Hajj this year following weeks of talks with Saudi Arabia, according to reports.
According to Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister, Adel Al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia would not acquiesce to “unacceptable” demands. Al-Jubeir commented that, “Iran refused to sign the memorandum and was practically demanding the right to hold demonstrations and to have other advantages … that would create chaos during haj, which is not acceptable”
Iranian Culture Minister, Ali Jannati, said the issue was ensuring safety following the death of hundreds of Iranian pilgrims last year. Bloomberg reports that as many as 460 of the more than 700 pilgrims who lost their lives in last year’s stampede during the Hajj were Iranian citizens.
Iran’s decision is not the first time it has prevented its citizens from performing the hajj in Mecca.
This is not the first time Iranians have been prevented from attending the Hajj. “Iran stopped sending Hajj pilgrims for three years following clashes during the Hajj in 1987 between Saudi security forces and pilgrims that resulted in the death of more than 400 people,” most of them Iranian, according to Iran’s Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization and as reported in Bloomberg.
An early obstacle in this contentious issue was how to handle visas for the Iranian pilgrims. With Saudi diplomatic representation cut following the storming of Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Tehran at the start of the year, Saudi Arabia has no official means of issuing visas inside Iran.
Both Iranian and Saudi media traded blame for the standoff and placed this most recent conflict in the context of broader regional tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Blasting critics of Saudi Arabia who appeared on the pro-Russia television station RT and other pro-Iranian media, Dr. Khaled M. Batarfi said that Iran is exploiting an opportunity to deepen the divide between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
“It is tough to argue with such unprofessional liars. They talk about conspiracies and events that no one has heard of, except them,” Batarfi wrote in the Saudi Gazette. “They drag Israel and America into all issues. And they don’t have any evidence and logic to substantiate their accusations.”
