Iranian ambassador’s disappearance affects Saudi-Iran relations

Iranian mourners attend the funeral ceremony of some pilgrims who were killed in a stampede during the hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia last month, as a mourner holds a banner which reads in Arabic, “May Allah Curse Al-Saud,” referring to Saudi Arabia’s ruling family, at Tehran University, in Tehran, Iran. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Iran said Wednesday 11th November that a top diplomat who went missing in the deadly stampede at this year’s hajj pilgrimage is still alive and has asked Saudi Arabia to send him home.

Ghazanfar Roknabadi was attending the annual Muslim gathering in September when pilgrims stampeded, killing at least 2,236 people in the hajj’s worst-ever tragedy.

Roknabadi, a 49-year-old former ambassador to Lebanon which is one of the most sensitive spots, was feared to be among the 464 Iranians killed.

But Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian was quoted by state news agency IRNA as telling Al-Mayadeen television: “Our intelligence indicates that he is still alive, and we ask Saudi Arabia to return him alive.”

In recent weeks, some Iranian media have speculated that Roknabadi may have been taken hostage, according to AFP. At the time of his disappearance, foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham denied reports by some Arab media that he had traveled to Saudi Arabia under a false name.

“He entered with a normal passport to perform the hajj” and “his identity and that of other missing pilgrims have been provided to Saudi Arabia,” she said. As Iranian media published a photo of his passport with a Saudi visa.

In the aftermath of the stampede, Ali Akbar Velayati, a former foreign minister and an adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said “high-ranking” Iranians were among the missing and the dead. He called on Riyadh to take the “necessary actions” regarding them.

AFP reports that Tehran has recovered the bodies of most of those Iranians killed in the stampede, but around 15 people are still listed as missing.

This incident is the latest to affect the relationship between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, the Gulf region’s powerhouses, as they have long had an uneasy relationship and are backing opposing sides in Syria, as well as in the conflict in Yemen.