Some Saudi media outlets blamed Iranian pilgrims for causing the stampede while Iranian officials called for Saudi Arabia to give up management of the hajj, a great source of revenue and clout in the Muslim world.
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The majority of Iranians are Shiite Muslims, while most in Saudi Arabia are Sunni.
“If they are claiming that they are not guilty in the incident, they should let an Islamic-international fact-finding delegation review and probe the case closely”, Khamenei said.
“If the existing problems with the Saudi government were merely the issue of the hajj… maybe it would have been possible to find a way to resolve it”, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said at a cabinet meeting.
He said the ban was in line with a decision by Iran to bar its citizens from performing Hajj this year due to differences with Saudi Arabia.
The Leader went on to add, “the Mina tragedy and the loss of lives of Iranian pilgrims while praying and thirsty under the burning sun, is a deeply grieving incident with various revealing political, social, moral and religious dimensions that must not be forgotten”.
Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, accused Tehran of preventing Iranian pilgrims from performing the annual Hajj pilgrimage and “politicizing” the ritual.
Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti, Al al-Sheikh hit back in a Saudi newspaper saying: “We have to understand that they (Iranians) are not Muslims”.
He has also repeated demand of Tehran for joint management of Hajj on the plea that Saudis were not capable of managing affairs leading to tragedies as we witnessed a year ago.
The ayatollah made the allegation on the anniversary of the stampede, which killed at least 2,426 people, including 464 Iranians, according to an unofficial count.
Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei renewed criticism of Saudi Arabia over how it runs the Hajj after a crush past year killed hundreds of pilgrims, and suggested Muslim countries think about ending Riyadh’s control of the annual pilgrimage.
The bitter war of words between Iran and Saudi Arabia intensified on Wednesday ahead of the annual haj pilgrimage+ from which Iranians have been excluded for the first time in decades.
Tensions between them have been rising since Saudi Arabia cut ties with Iran in January following the storming of its embassy in Tehran, itself a response to the Saudi execution of a dissident Shi’ite cleric.
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The worst Hajj-related accident was in 1990, when 1,426 people were killed in a crush in an overcrowded pedestrian tunnel. Predating Christianity and Islam, Zoroastrianism was the dominant religion in Persia before the Muslim conquest. Saudi’s grand mufti countered the next day by asserting that Iranians are “not Muslims”.
