Iran to Dispatch Hajj Pilgrims to Saudi Arabia This Year: Minister
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Seyed Reza Salehi Amiri said it is the country’s “definitive policy” to dispatch its nationals to Saudi Arabia for Hajj pilgrimage later this year.
Speaking to reporters in Tehran on Wednesday on the sidelines of a cabinet meeting, Salehi Amiri said Iranian people are keen to go on Hajj pilgrimage.
“The definitive policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran is to dispatch Hajj pilgrims to Saudi Arabia next (Iranian) year, but this depends on whether Saudi Arabia would provide the necessary conditions,” he said.
His comments came after Ali Qazi-Askar, the representative of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution in Hajj and pilgrimage affairs, said that an Iranian delegation will travel to Saudi Arabia on Thursday, February 23, for talks on the Hajj pilgrimage of Iranians later this year.
Earlier last month, Qazi-Askar confirmed that Iran had received an invitation from Saudi Arabia for talks on the 2017 Hajj pilgrimage.
More than 1.8 million faithful took part in last year’s Hajj, but Iranians stayed at home after tensions between Riyadh and Tehran boiled over following a deadly crush of people during the 2015 pilgrimage.
On September 24, 2015, thousands of people lost their lives in the crush after Saudi authorities blocked a road in Mina during a ritual, forcing large crowds of pilgrims to collide.
The crush was the deadliest incident in the history of the pilgrimage. Saudi Arabia claims nearly 770 people were killed in the incident, but officials at Iran’s Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization say about 7,000 people, including over 460 Iranian pilgrims, lost their lives.
