A senior Iranian official has revealed that his country's pilgrims will perform this year some of the worship ceremonies in Saudi hotels, stressing the existence of an agreement with Riyadh to separate religious rites from the political row.
The head of the pilgrimage mission Ali Qazi Askar - in a speech Friday in front of the east of the country - the inability of Saudi Arabia to provide security in some places, according to news agency Fars reported.
He added that as a result, it was decided to establish some of the worship rituals that take place on the sidelines of pilgrimage in the hotels.
The source did not specify the nature of the ceremony and whether it is related to the Shiite orientation, which is usually prohibited by the Kingdom in the Hajj ceremonies, and Saudi Arabia has not commented so far on the talk of the Iranian official.
Askar stressed that the Saudi side agreed that the issue of Hajj should be free from the state of bilateral political and economic relations, which would affect how to perform Hajj this year compared to previous years.
He pointed to the improved performance of Saudi airports to receive pilgrims, unlike in previous years, and provide them with the necessary means.
He considered that the rituals of this duty is supposed to represent a manifestation of unity among the elements of the Islamic nation, not to be a site of differences between Sunnis and Shiites.
In December, Iran's new president Ali Reza Rashidiyan said there were understandings with Riyadh about the upcoming pilgrimage season, with the participation of 84,000 Iranians and 2,500 service, medical and administrative staff.
The haj pilgrimage witnessed two incidents, one of which was the fall of a large crane on September 11 of the same year inside Mecca, killing 107 people and injuring 238 others, as well as a stampede in Mina on the 24th of the same month during which hundreds of dead and wounded, mostly Iranians, were killed.