“These are already-used words and a kind of break forward,” said Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Ghasemi on Tuesday in response to the latest remarks of Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, “repeating the same false anti-Iran accusations about politicizing Hajj rituals, Saudi heads are playing the same futile game of evading a heavy responsibility that they have been playing since last year.”
He called Saudi prince to remember how desperate they were in providing security for Hajj rituals of last year and urged him to be responsible toward the bereaved nations of last year’s tragedy of Mina. In Mina tragedy on September 24, 2015, around 5000 pilgrims were killed in a stampede that Saudi monarch insisted to be an accident.
“Rulers who are claiming to be protective of Islamic teachings should beforehand find and prosecute those responsible for the loss of thousands of pilgrims and abortion of an international fact-finding committee on the event,” reiterated the Iranian diplomat.
Voicing regret over what he called unwise words of Saudi prince, Ghasemi asserted that the consequences of incapability in running Hajj and occurrence of human disaster are up to the rulers who not only declined to apologize about the loss of thousands of innocent pilgrims, but also victimize the Muslim nations of the region, directly and indirectly, with their deceitful political plots.
YNG/3763084