Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei renewed criticism of Saudi Arabia over how it runs the haj after a crush a year ago killed hundreds of pilgrims, and suggested Muslim countries think about ending Riyadh’s control of the annual pilgrimage. Khamenei has also blamed Saudi Arabia for an earlier crane collapse in Mecca that killed 111 people.
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Custodian of Islam’s most revered places in Mecca and Medina, Saudi Arabia stakes its reputation on organizing haj, one of the five pillars of Islam which every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to is obliged to undertake at least once.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are long standing competitions for regional direction. An official Saudi inquiry has yet to be published, but authorities suggested at the time some pilgrims ignored crowd control rules. Hundreds of new surveillance cameras had been installed at the Grand Mosque. “This is the area we have to concentrate on, to make sure pilgrims.comply with it once they get there”.
Saudi authorities have not released the findings of their investigation into the hajj disaster.
In a statement Ayatollah Khamenei said: “Saudi rulers, who have obstructed the path of Allah and have blocked the proud and faithful Iranian pilgrims’ path to the Beloved’s House, are disgraced and misguided people”.
This month’s hajj will be the first time in nearly three decades that Iranian pilgrims have not participated.
Iran says Saudi Arabia failed to meet Iranian demands for “the security and respect” of Iranian pilgrims but Saudi Arabia says the demands were “unacceptable”. The two countries severed diplomatic relations in January after Saudi Arabia executed a prominent Shiite cleric and angry Iranian crowds overran Saudi diplomatic missions.
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He reserved some of his harshest words for Riyadh’s response to a deadly stampede during last year’s hajj that killed some 2,300 foreign pilgrims, including an estimated 464 Iranians.
