TEHRAN/DOHA: In a diplomatic icebreaker between political foes, tens of thousands of Muslim faithful from Iran have flocked to Saudi Arabia for the annual hajj pilgrimage to Islam's holiest sites. This week's hajj marks Iran's return after their absence last year following a massive stampede in 2015 that killed around 2,300 people, including 464 Iranians. The tragedy sparked bitter recrimination from Tehran over the kingdom's custodianship of the sites in Makkah and Madinah.
For the first time in nearly three decades, Iranian pilgrims were barred from the hajj last year, after several rounds of negotiations between the two Gulf heavyweights failed to overcome political and procedural differences. Adding a further obstacle, the Sunni kingdom cut all ties with Iran in January 2016 after its diplomatic missions in Tehran and Mashhad were torched by protesters angered by Saudi Arabia's execution of a prominent Shiite figure.
But under a deal struck in March, about 86,000 Iranians have now arrived in Saudi Arabia for the hajj, joining two million Muslims from across the globe in converging on Makkah. "I'm happy to see so many Iranians here... Political issues shouldn't interfere in a religious duty, especially the hajj," Abbas Ali, a 54-year-old Iranian, said yesterday at Jeddah airport that is the main entry point for pilgrims.
"It's very difficult to describe my feelings. We shouldn't stop coming here because all of us are Muslims," the newly-arrived "haji" from Zahedan in eastern Iran told AFP. The breakthrough came after several months of negotiations during which the two countries traded accusations of obstructing an agreement.
Tehran and Riyadh stand on opposing sides in several regional disputes, including the conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain, as well as this year's Gulf diplomatic crisis between Qatar and a Saudi-led Arab bloc. The pilgrimage now seems to be acting as an icebreaker between the two powers. In the absence of diplomatic relations and with its missions in Iran closed, Saudi Arabia agreed to issue electronic visas for Iranian pilgrims.
Saudi Arabia has also allowed Iran's national carrier Iran Air to fly in most of the Islamic republic's pilgrims, while some were transported by the kingdom's carrier. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said last week that visas have been issued for diplomats from the two countries to visit and inspect each other's empty embassies and consulates. "We are waiting for final measures to be taken so diplomats from both countries can visit," he said. "This will probably happen after the hajj."
Iran has set up temporary consulates in the kingdom to assist its pilgrims, and it has instructed them to avoid "arguments" with Saudi staff at airports and pilgrimage sites. "We have tried to separate the bilateral relations between the two countries from the pilgrimage," a former Iranian culture minister, Seyed-Reza Salehi Amiri, said last month. In another key gesture, Tehran is to hold Shiite prayers, normally accompanied by chants of "Death to America" and "Death to Israel", inside hotels rather than outdoors, to avoid "security problems", according to Ali Ghazi Askar, an aide to Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
In 1987, more than 400 people, most of them Iranian pilgrims, were killed in clashes with Saudi security forces at an anti-Western rally in Makkah. The hajj, which starts this year tomorrow, is one of the five pillars of the Islamic faith, which every Muslim is required to complete at least once in a lifetime if he or she has the means to do so.
Meanwhile, Qatar has sent only dozens of its citizens across the border to Saudi Arabia for the hajj because of the increasingly bitter crisis between the Gulf neighbors. The annual pilgrimage has become embroiled in a dispute between Doha and Riyadh now nearing its third month. Qatar's only land border, which it shares with Saudi Arabia, has been closed and travel, diplomatic and economic sanctions imposed over charges that Doha supports Islamist extremists and has too close ties to Riyadh's regional rival Iran. Doha has strongly denied the accusations.
Impacting on the hajj, only a few dozen Qatari nationals have been able to travel to Mecca and Medina, western Saudi Arabia, according to a member of Qatar's state-linked National Human Rights Committee (NHRC). "Through the border, we estimate 60 to 70 people (travelled) last week," he told AFP. "It's not an official figure, we are waiting for an official figure." Media reports in Saudi Arabia have put the number at up to 1,200 Qataris. In sharp contrast, 12,000 Qataris took part in last year's hajj, according to the state-run Qatar News Agency.
Saudi Arabia temporarily suspended the border closure on Aug 17, at the same time as it announced Qatari pilgrims would be allowed into the kingdom for the hajj. With flights between Qatar and Saudi Arabia suspended and Qatar Airways banned from using Saudi airspace, Riyadh had offered to ferry pilgrims using exclusively Saudi Arabian Airlines planes. But the offer soon became mired in the diplomatic spat, with Qatar charging that Saudi authorities had politicized a religious right.
The Saudi carrier accused Qatar of refusing to allow its planes to land in the emirate on the grounds that they lacked "the right paperwork". In response, Qatar said the Saudi airline had lodged the papers with the wrong government department. The decision to reopen the border came a day after a surprise meeting between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and a little-known member of Qatar's royal family, sparking allegations Riyadh was seeking regime change in Doha.
In past years, most Qatari pilgrims travelled to Makkah, crossing the width of Saudi Arabia, in officially-sanctioned groups. Those who crossed into Saudi Arabia this year have travelled privately, ignoring official Qatari warnings over the treatment they could receive in the kingdom. Doha has said it is worried about potential "harassment" of Qatari pilgrims who make the journey to Makkah.
Some 2,400 pilgrims were originally due to travel from Qatar through official operators, although 24,000 people had applied, according to the NHRC. The committee said eight companies, which planned to transport pilgrims, had lost 30 million riyals ($8.2 million) in potential earnings due to the Saudi "restrictions". Qatar has said it would seek a total of billions of dollars in compensation for the sanctions enforced since June by Saudi Arabia and its allies, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt. - Agencies