A Saudi airline has resumed flights for pilgrims of the Iranian Haj to the kingdom for the first time in a decade, the last sign of heating ties between countries.
“Flynas resumed the flights of Iranian pilgrims from Imam Khomeini (Airport) in Tehran on Saturday,” said an official of the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority AFPtalking about anonymity condition.
The official said that flights would also be added from Mashhad in Iran, allowing more than 35,000 pilgrims to travel to Saudi Arabia in the airline. Flynas is an economic airline based in Saudi Arabia, which operates national and international routes.
The official emphasized that the flights were not commercial and were only for the pilgrimage of the HAJ.
The Haj will begin during the first week of June, and pilgrims around the world have already begun to pour Saudi Arabia.
They will be dominated by Shiite and Saudi Saudi Arabia resumed relations in March 2023 under a surprise of China’s negotiation after a break of seven years.
Saudi Arabia cut the relations with Iran in 2016 after its embassy in Tehran and the consulate in the northwest city of Mashhad was attacked during the protests after Arabia Saudita executed the Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr.
Iranian pilgrims were not allowed to Saudi Arabia in 2016, the year in which the ties were broken, since the two parties could not organize a protocol to attend.
In September 2015, a stampede during the HAJ killed up to 2,300 faithful, including hundreds of Iranians.
Iran’s pilgrims were then allowed to join Haj, but they were only allowed to travel to Saudi Arabia on Iranian rented flights during the Haj season.
But since the Iranian-Saudí approach of March 2023, the regional powers have intensified their contacts.
The two exchanged ambassadors and visits of Foreign Ministers before the late Ebrahim Raisi made the first visit of an Iranian president to the kingdom in 20 years for a joint Arabal summit in the Israeli invasion of Gaza in November 2023.
In December, Iran Air resumed the operations between Mashhad and Dammam in East Saudi Arabia.
And last month, Saudi Defense Minister, Prince Khalid Bin Salman, traveled in a rare visit of a Saudi royalty to Iran, where he also met the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The movements occur when the United States and Iran have made four rounds of conversations aimed at marking a new agreement on Tehran’s nuclear program.
The president of the United States, Donald Trump, hinted during his tour of the Gulf that the two parties were “approaching” an agreement, but also warned Tehran to move quickly to seal an agreement or “something bad will happen.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi visited Saudi Arabia a few days before Trump began his regional tour last week.
