Dubai: Saudis have rejected claims being circulated online that Saudi Arabia has barred Qataris from performing Haj this year.
Allegations that the Qatari currency, the Riyal, would not be accepted by the exchange bureaus and banks in Saudi Arabia during Haj were also dismissed as baseless.
“The average of Qatar nationals who performed Haj in the last five years was 1,600 annually while the number of non-Qataris residing in Qatar was 400,” Saud Al Qahtani, an advisor at the Saudi Royal Court, said. Saudi Arabia is ready to welcome all Muslims coming to perform Haj from Qatar,” he said, adding that he was looking forward to the Qatari authorities easing the procedures for those who had applied.
Al Qahtani said that the claims about the Qatari currency not being accepted in the kingdom were not true.
Neither the currency nor the credit banks from Qatari banks have been suspended as it is being claimed, he said.
Saudi Arabia severed its diplomatic and trade ties with Qatar, closed its seaports and airports to all Qatar-registered aircraft and ships and barred Qatari nationals from going to the kingdom.
The measures were to protest Qatar’s support for extremist ideologies and terrorism and interference in the internal affairs of Arab countries.
However, Saudi Arabia said the ban did not extend to pilgrimage (Haj) and Umrah and that Qataris were welcome for the religious rituals.
On July 20, the Saudi Ministry of Haj and Umrah said the kingdom welcomed people from Qatar who wished to perform Haj and Umrah.
However, it added that for Umrah, Qataris could fly to Saudi Arabia on any carrier except Qatar Airways.
Qataris and expatriates with Qatari residency visas who have Haj permits from the Saudi ministry and from relevant bodies in Qatar can enter the Kingdom via air carriers chosen by Doha and approved by Saudi Arabia’s General Authority for Civil Aviation (GACA), the ministry said in a statement.
They can enter through King Abdul Aziz International Airport in Jeddah and Prince Mohammad Bin Abdul Aziz Airport in Madinah.
GACA later confirmed the arrangements.
