Kuwait Times

Published Date: January 18, 2010

RIYADH: The Riyadh-based Islamic Solidarity Sports Federation yesterday called off the athletic games planned for Tehran in April because of Iran's use of the term "Persian Gulf" on winners' medals. The ISSF, headed by Saudi Olympic Federation president Prince Sultan bin Fahd, said after an emergency board meeting that Iran's local organising committee "unilaterally took some decisions without asking the federation by writing some slogans on the medals and pamphlets of the games".

Iran "did not abide by the rules of the Islamic Solidarity Sports Federation" and "did not follow the decisions taken by the general assembly of the federation at a previous meeting in Riyadh," it said in a statement. The games were being called off because of the dispute, the ISSF said. Iran's committee for the games criticised the decision through its website. "In spite of convincing arguments made to the ISSF executive committee (by Iran's committee), regrettably and without presenting any logical reaso
ns, the ISSF committee decided not to hold the games with Iran as the host," it said.

Swine flu worries and the dispute over Tehran's insistence on using "Persian Gulf" for the waters between Iran and the Arabian peninsula had already caused the games to be postponed since an initial planned date of last October. The Arab countries of the oil-rich region insist on the term "Arabian Gulf" or simply the "Gulf". It would have been the second time the games were held after a first tournament was held in the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah in 2005.

The cancellation comes amid a rise in tensions between Riyadh and Tehran, as Saudi Arabia has been seeking to unite Arab countries and isolate its regional rival. Both have traded accusations of interfering in the conflict in Yemen between government forces and Shiite rebels. And an Iranian official confirmed yesterday that Tehran has suspended Muslim pilgrimages to the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah in Saudi Arabia until Saudi religious police end their "appalling behaviour" towards Iranian Shiite pilg
rims.

The reason for the suspension is because the way the agents (mutawwa) of the Saudi Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice have been dealing with our pilgrims," the head of public relations of the Iranian hajj and pilgrimage organisation Abdollah Nassiri said. "The umrah has been suspended and not halted," Nassiri added, referring to the so-called less pilgrimage that is carried out throughout the year unlike the annual hajj which was held most recently late last year. "Our move is not p
olitical, it is religious," he said. "Since we are Shiites, we have different rituals, like reciting the special pilgrimage prayers in Makkah and Madinah mosques, which has resulted in their agents rudely confronting our pilgrims and we want this to be corrected and stopped.

Saudi Arabia is governed according to an ultra-strict version of Sunni Islam and relies on the religious police of the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice to enforce such rules. Iranian pilgrims all travel to the Muslim holy places under the auspices of the hajj and pilgrimage organisation so its decision effectively suspends their travel until further notice.

The organisation's head, Ali Layali, told Iran's Fars news agency: "Due to the appalling behaviour of the Saudi agents during the last annual hajj and the previous umrah, we decided to have talks with the Saudis over the umrah." "We received many reports from our pilgrims about the appalling behaviour of the Saudi agents" he said, adding: "Their approach made many of our citizens very upset." Layali said he had "no idea about the timing of the negotiations. And until the negotiations bear fruit, I cannot t
ell you when the umrah will resume. But I have to add the issue is religious and not political.

A week ago, Iran's conservative-dominated parliament slammed a Saudi Friday prayer leader, saying he insulted neighbouring Iraq's top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini Al-Sistani. MPs urged the Saudi government to take legal action against prayer leader Mohammed Al-Areefi for allegedly calling Sistani an "atheist and debauched". The Muslim holy places and the annual pilgrimage there which is one of the pillars of Islam have been repeated bones of contention between Iran and Saudi Arabia in the pas
t.

In 1987, Saudi police attempts to stifle a protest by Iranian pilgrims chanting "death to America," and "death to Israel," in the streets of Makkah led to a riot in which 402 people died, 275 of them Iranians. When Saudi Arabia sided with Saddam Hussein's Iraq in its 1980-88 war with Iran, Iran's late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini accused the kingdom of being a lackey of the United States that was incapable of looking after the holy places. Riyadh cut relations between 1988 and 1991. - A
FP