Nearly 90,000 Iranians are expected to attend the Hajj this year, and were due to start arriving on Sunday, after Tehran boycotted the pilgrimage last year amid tensions with Saudi Arabia. Around 800 pilgrims were due to leave Iran on three flights to Medina on Sunday, the director of the Hajj at Iran's Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization, Nasrollah Farahmand told state media.
Approximately 86,500 Iranians are expected to attend the Hajj in total this year and 800 co-ordinators have travelled to Saudi Arabia to help Iranians during the pilgrimage, he said. Iran boycotted the Hajj last year after hundreds of people, many of them Iranians, died in a crush at the pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia in 2015, and following a diplomatic rift between the two countries which are vying for power and influence in the region. In a speech to Hajj organizers on Sunday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that Iranians would never forget the "catastrophic events" of 2015 and called on Saudi Arabia to ensure the security of all pilgrims. "The serious and constant issue for the Islamic Republic is the preservation of the security, dignity, welfare and comfort of all pilgrims, particularly Iranian pilgrims," Khamenei said, according to his official site. "The security of the Hajj is the responsibility of the country where the two noble shrines exist."
Riyadh severed diplomatic relations last year after Iranian protesters stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran following the execution of a Shia cleric in Saudi Arabia in January 2016. In February this year Iran sent a delegation to Saudi Arabia that initiated the process of Iranian pilgrims returning for the Hajj.
However, tensions between the two countries remain at an all-time high.
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