Saudi invites rival Iran for talks on hajj return

Saudi Arabia has invited regional rival Iran to discuss a return of its nationals to next year's hajj after Iranians were excluded from the pilgrimage following a major diplomatic row, reports said Friday.

The Al-Hayat daily reported that Riyadh's pilgrims minister Mohammed Bentin had opened discussions with more than 80 countries, including Iran, to work out the details of the 2017 hajj. "Iran's hajj delegation was invited to come to the kingdom" for preparations, the paper said.

The Arab News daily said Riyadh would welcome pilgrims for hajj and the smaller umra rite "irrespective of their nationalities or sectarian affiliations, including Iranian pilgrims".More than 1.8 million faithful took part in this year's hajj, but Iranians stayed at home after tensions between Riyadh and Tehran boiled over following a deadly stampede during the 2015 pilgrimage. Iran says it lost 464 people in the crush outside Mecca.

In September 2015, a deadly human crush occurred during Hajj rituals in Mina, near Mecca. Days into the incident, Saudi Arabia published a death toll of 770 but refused to update it despite gradually surging fatality figures from individual countries whose nationals had been among the victims of the crush. Iran said about 4,700 people, including over 465 of its nationals, lost their lives in the incident.

Earlier that same month, a massive construction crane had collapsed into Mecca's Grand Mosque, killing more than 100 pilgrims, including 11 Iranians, and injuring over 200 others, including 32 nationals from Iran.

Serious questions were raised about the competence of Saudi authorities to manage the Hajj rituals in the wake of the incidents, and, facing Saudi intransigence to cooperate and refusal to guarantee the safety of Iranian pilgrims, officials in the Islamic Republic subsequently decided to halt pilgrimages over security concerns.

Riyadh cut ties with Tehran in January after Iranian demonstrators torched its embassy and a consulate following its execution of a prominent Shiite cleric.