Yesterday Iran announced that this year it will not facilitate sending Iranian Muslim pilgrims to the Hajj in Mecca.
Last year, the number of people making the religious pilgrimage proved unmanageable, leading to a stampede in which almost 2,500 people were crushed to death.
Iran claims the newly announced restriction is because of safety issues, but the stoush is just the latest in an ongoing cold war between the two Middle Eastern powers, which escalated last year when Iran signed a nuclear deal with the US – a Saudi ally.
Over recent weeks, the two countries had been negotiating visa and transport conditions for the pilgrimage, but those negotiations collapsed on Thursday.
Iran says it’s Saudi Arabia’s fault. They say the Saudis would not give safety guarantees and refused to let Iran set up additional first aid sites.
Saudi Arabia blames the Iranians for the breakdown. They say the main issues were related to visas and airlines. They say Iran also sought a guarantee that worshipers could perform a Shia ritual, which the Saudi’s say would obstruct other pilgrims.
Saudi Arabia is a majority Sunni country, while Iran is Majority Shia. Both accuse each other of politicizing the Hajj.
Roger Shanahan from Australia’s Lowy Institute and National Security College says Iran’s security concerns are probably legitimate.
“There’s a particular sensitivity in Iran to safety concerns, and how the Saudis actually run the Hajj,” he told The Feed. But he said the Saudi’s showed good faith by hosting the talks.
Iran’s state-run Press TV has run extensive stories on the 2015 stampede, including graphic images of dead pilgrims. Iran says 464 of the dead were Iranians, more than any other country.
Tit for tat
The collapse in negotiations is only the latest marker of a deteriorating relationship between two of the largest and most powerful countries in the Middle East.
“Their foreign ministers are on a first name basis, but they tend to quibble a lot in multilateral meetings,” one Western diplomat told The Feed.
Saudi Arabia severed official diplomatic ties with Iran in January, after Iranian authorities failed to prevent protestors from torching their embassy in Tehran. They were later ejected by police.
Those protests were a response to Saudi Arabia’s execution of Shia religious leader, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, who was convicted of sedition and bearing arms after accusations he led anti-government protests. The trial was flawed, according to Amnesty International.
Sheikh al-Nimr’s nephew, Ali al-Nimr, has also been sentenced to death. Amnesty International has been campaigning to save his life, noting the alleged offences occurred when he was just 17.
If the sentence is carried out, it would likely spark a new round of tensions.
A tense history
Roger Shanahan says the rivalry between the countries goes back much further than the execution though. The most recent round goes back to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, he says, and historically it goes back even further to Iran’s 1979 revolution.
“After the revolution Ayatollah Khomeini called for an export of the revolution, and claimed leadership over the worlds Muslims,” Shanahan told The Feed.
The countries were then on opposite sides in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. The conflict left hundreds of thousands dead after bloody trench warfare and major chemical weapon attacks.
Since Saddam Hussein was removed, Iran and Saudi Arabia have competed for influence in Iraq. The country’s population, a mix of Sunni and Shia, is caught between the two rivals – literally.
Yemen has also been a battleground. Saudi Arabia has been backing the government in bloody civil war against rebels, which it says are backed by Iran.
Experts and diplomats The Feed spoke to said the Saudi’s claims were overblown. Iran was likely providing logistical support for rebels, Shanahan said, but there was no strong alliance.
While the Hajj fallout may seem minor by comparison, it’s a sign that the cold war between the two shows no sign of ending soon.
sbs.com.au
