TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran said on Sunday it would stop sending pilgrims to Iraq's Shi'ite religious shrines because of the security situation it is currently facing, as mass anti-government protests widened.
"Security is not available at the moment for the presence of Iranian visitors," Iranian television quoted a source in the mission of Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as saying.
The source added that the Iranian pilgrimage organization asked all offices to stop sending the processions of visitors to the "holy shrines" in Iraq until further notice.
For the tenth day in a row, demonstrations continued in Baghdad and a number of central and southern Iraq provinces, where protesters' demands for better services, jobs and anti-corruption rose to the overthrow of the government, following the use of violence by the army and security forces and hundreds of deaths and injuries.
Khamenei described the demonstrators in Iraq and Lebanon recently as "rioters", calling at the same time calling them "careful" in these countries to "address the riots."