AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): Officials from Iran and Saudi Arabia are holding consultations on participation of Iranians in Umrah pilgrimage.
This is according to Head of Iran’s Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization Seyed Abbas Hosseini, speaking in a meeting in Tehran with the Saudi Ambassador to Iran Abdullah bin Saud Al-Anzi.
Hosseini said a delegation from the organization is in the Arab country for final talks on the resumption of Umrah trips for Iranian pilgrims as well as consultations on the next year’s Hajj pilgrimage.
He noted that over 5.5 million Iranians are in line waiting for their turn to take the Umrah pilgrimage.
Hosseini hoped that with the removal of obstacles, sending Umrah pilgrims to the holy sites in Saudi Arabia will resume soon.
The Saudi envoy, for his part, underlined the development of ties with Iran in different areas, including in the field of pilgrimage trips.
He said his country will employ all its capacities to facilitate the reception of Umrah pilgrims from Iran.
Figures show that some 5.7 million people are on a waiting list for travelling to Saudi Arabia to perform Umrah, a pilgrimage to Islam’s two holiest sites in Saudi Arabia’s Mecca and Medina which can be undertaken at any time of year.
Umrah differs from Hajj in that the latter is a lengthier visit which is done once a year and performed once in a lifetime by able-bodied Muslims who can afford it.
Iran stopped sending Umrah pilgrims to Saudi Arabia after two Iranian teenage boys were harassed in an airport in the Saudi city of Jeddah in March 2015.
That came nearly a year before the two countries cut their diplomatic relations.
Iran and Saudi Arabia re-established diplomatic ties in March 2023 through a China-mediated agreement, marking a significant development after severing relations in 2016.
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