Iranian Umrah pilgrims to travel to Saudi Arabia after 9 years

IRAN – After a gap of nearly a decade, the authorities in Iran have announced to send Umrah pilgrims to Saudi Arabia as the ties between the two countries improve.

The spokesman of Hajj operations in Iran has revealed that nearly 5000 pilgrims shall travel to Saudi Arabia by 11 flights. In this regard, the first flight will take off on Monday from Mashhad’s international airport and other major cities, including Zahedan, Ahvaz, Tabriz, Yazd, Kerman, Bandar Abbas, Sari, Isfahan, and Shiraz, will charter one flight each afterwards. Moreover, the flight operations would wind up on May 2nd as the last flight will depart from Mashhad to Saudi Arabia.

Iranian authorities had initially hoped that the Umrah pilgrims would leave for Saudi Arabia on December 19th as the agreement between Tehran and Riyadh to resume the Umrah pilgrimage for Iranians after eight years had been signed.

However, that flight and subsequent ones were canceled as reportedly Saudi authorities did not provide final permits for Iranian planes to enter Saudi Arabia which had worried Iranian Muslims.

The resumption of flights between both countries will have a positive impact on the relationship and regional stability. China played an important role in brokering an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran back in March last year which helped to cement ties between the two Muslim nations.

There have been multiple issues between the two countries which hindered improvement of relationship including the 2016 Riyadh’s execution of a Shi’ite Muslim cleric and the subsequent storming of the Saudi embassy in Tehran.

Iranian pilgrims are also set to perform hajj pilgrimage, a religious duty deemed mandatory for Muslims who aim to carry it out once in their lifetime and which is subject to strict annual quotas and timings. As far as the Umrah is concerned, Iranian Muslims were not able to perform the religious duty after the 2015 stampede in Saudi Arabia which claimed lives of over 2000 Muslims including 400 which belonged to Iran.

The fresh announcement confirms that Iranians would fly to the holy kingdom after an extended gap. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is also promoting tourism in the country and the positive developments between Iran and Saudi Arabia would also help the Muslim community across the world.