Tehran says it has finally received Saudi hajj invite

Iran said Tuesday it had finally received an official invitation from Saudi Arabia for its pilgrims to attend this year’s hajj, two weeks after Riyadh announced it. There was no official Iranian delegation at last year’s pilgrimage to the Muslim holy places after Sunni Saudi Arabia severed relations with Shiite Iran following the torching of […]

Iran said Tuesday it had finally received an official invitation from Saudi Arabia for its pilgrims to attend this year’s hajj, two weeks after Riyadh announced it. There was no official Iranian delegation at last year’s pilgrimage to the Muslim holy places after Sunni Saudi Arabia severed relations with Shiite Iran following the torching of its missions in Tehran and Mashhad by protesters in January last year. It was the first time in three decades that Iranian pilgrims had been absent and the culmination of years of worsening relations over the conflicts in Syria and Yemen. “The Iranian delegation will travel to Saudi Arabia on February 23… and we hope to get tangible results,” hajj affairs representative Ali Ghazi Askar told the Mizan Online news website. “For the time being, nothing is certain and we will attend the hajj as long as the situation is prepared for us,” he said.