No Hajj Agreement between Tehran, Riyadh Yet
According to a report carried by the newspaper on Friday, a meeting had been planned between Saudi Hajj officials and an Iranian delegation led by Saeed Ohadi, the head of Iran’s Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization, on Thursday but the meeting was not held.
It claimed that the Saudi officials had been waiting for the Iranian delegation to arrive in Jeddah for the meeting but they failed to do so.
Ohadi and a number of other officials have in recent weeks held several rounds of talks with the Saudi side on sending Iranian pilgrims to this year’s Hajj.
Earlier this week, a senior Saudi Hajj official had said talks with visiting Iranian delegation on arrangements for this year’s Hajj pilgrimage have been "positive.”
The two sides discussed "arrangements, as well as organization and services” for pilgrims, Hussein Sharif, the Saudi Hajj and Umrah Ministry undersecretary, said after a meeting with the Iranian delegates on Wednesday.
Tehran has insisted in the talks that visas for Iranian pilgrims should be issued in Iran and that the safety of travelers to Saudi Arabia must be ensured, given the disaster in Mina that killed many pilgrims in the previous Hajj pilgrimage.
More than 460 Iranians were among the thousands of pilgrims who died on September 24, 2015, in a crush in Mina, near Mecca, during the Hajj pilgrimage.
The incident marked the worst ever tragedy during Hajj.
There have been doubts about participation of Iranian pilgrims in the 2016 Hajj since tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia ran high following Riyadh’s execution of prominent Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, and a subsequent attack by outraged Iranian protesters on the Saudi embassy in Tehran, which resulted in the Arab country’s decision to sever its ties with the Islamic Republic.
Although Iranian officials criticized the embassy attack and those involved in the attack have been brought to justice, Saudi Arabia has cut off all diplomatic relations with Iran.
