Kuwaiti daily Al Jarida reported on Saturday that the officials were to
take the trip following the Muslim festivities of Eid al-Adha, which will end on
Monday.
The kingdom broke off the ties in January 2016 in protest at demonstrations in
front of its diplomatic premises in Tehran and Mashhad against its execution of
leading Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.
After cutting the ties, Saudi also halted cooperation on helping Iranians go on
the Hajj pilgrimage.
The Kuwaiti paper said the Saudi team would be visiting its diplomatic
facilities. It said the delegation had been supposed to take the trip two months
ago, but differences with Iranian officials concerning the
arrangements postponed the visit.
Ties began to deteriorate following a human crush in Mina, near the Saudi holy
city of Mecca, in September 2015, which killed thousands of pilgrims, including
hundreds of Iranians. The incident cast doubt on the kingdom’s efficiency in
hosting the rituals.
Iran is still pressing Saudi Arabia to clarify the circumstances of the incident
and a separate crane crash earlier that month in which another number of Iranian
pilgrims were killed.
On Saturday, representative of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed
Ali Khamenei in Hajj and pilgrimage affairs Seyyed Ali Qazi-Askar told Iranian
pilgrims in Mina that the Islamic Republic was pursuing the cases of "martyrs"
in Saudi Arabia.
He "expressed hope that follow-up efforts in this regard would reach the desired
outcome as soon as possible," the official news agency IRNA reported.
Tension between the two countries eased considerably recently during the
preparations for the pilgrimage this year when Iranian Hajj officials and
diplomats met Saudi officials to discuss arrangements for would-be Iranian
pilgrims.
According to Al Jarida, an Iranian delegation is expected to visit Saudi Arabia
following the mission by the Saudi assessment team amid hopes that the exchange
of visits would mark the start of a new chapter in the relations between the two
countries, particularly as bilateral contacts would be open and direct instead
of via third parties.
The paper said Iranians were looking forward to the visits succeeding in
settling differences and the resumption of diplomatic ties, adding Tehran viewed
the presence of the Saudi team in Iran as an indication of the kingdom’s
intention to resume diplomatic relations.
There was no immediate reaction to the report by Iranian officials on Sunday.
More than 80,000 Iranian pilgrims are now in Saudi Arabia to perform the Hajj,
the annual pilgrimage to Islam’s holiest sites, after they avoided the trip last
year because Riyadh failed to give assurances to Iran about their safety.
The return of Iranian pilgrims followed painstaking negotiations between
officials from the two countries.
Last week, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that if all goes smoothly, the
pilgrimage could set the stage for further talks. Foreign Minister Muhammad
Javad Zarif also said last month that Iran and Saudi Arabia were preparing to
exchange diplomatic visits.
"The visas have been issued for both sides to make this trip,” he told a local
news outlet.
SOURCE:ALALAM