Iranian president arrives in Saudi Arabia to perform hajj (Roundup)

Dec 17, 2007, 13:25 GMT

Riyadh - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived Monday in the Muslim holy city of Medina to perform the hajj at the invitation of the King of Saudi Arabia.

Ahmadinejad is the first president of the Islamic Republic of Iran to be officially invited by Saudi Arabia to perform the annual Muslim pilgrimage.

The Iranian president has visited the kingdom twice since he took office in 2005.

The pilgrimage in Mecca and Medina - Islam's holiest cities - had in the past reflected periodical tensions between the largest Shiite Muslim state and the conservative Sunni kingdom.

Fears of infectious revolutionary ideas coming from the Islamic Republic that had toppled the Shah regime gripped the kingdom in the last decades.

Saudi Arabia with a Shiite minority living in the eastern province also fears the growing political clout of Iran in the Middle East.

Tensions between both countries reached their peak in 1987 when hundreds of people, many of them Iranian pilgrims, died in clashes with Saudi security forces during the hajj.

Anti-Shiite religious propaganda openly expressed in Saudi media and during the annual pilgrimage has been a cause for concern in Iran.

But both countries have been seeking cooperation to end political crises in Lebanon and Iraq, where Tehran and Riyadh have been jockeying for positions of power.

The Iranian president was invited to attend the Doha summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council - a Gulf Arab alliance - in December, signalling a thaw in relations between Saudi Arabia, the council's powerhouse, and Iran.