Khamenei urges Muslims to reconsider Saudi holy sites management

Iran's supreme leader issued an angry rebuke to "blasphemous" regional rival Saudi Arabia on Monday, calling on the Muslim world to question its management of Islam's holiest sites.

"Because of Saudi rulers' oppressive behaviour towards God's guests, the world of Islam must fundamentally reconsider the management of the two holy places and the issue of hajj," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a statement published on his website, referring to Mecca and Medina.

In his comments, published ahead of this month's annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, the supreme leader also accused the Saudi royal family – the custodians of Islam's holiest sites – of politicising the pilgrimage, and turning themselves into "small and puny Satans who tremble for fear of jeopardising the interests of the Great Satan (the United States)".

"Saudi rulers... who have blocked the proud and faithful Iranian pilgrims' path to the Beloved's House, are disgraced and misguided people who think their survival on the throne of oppression is dependent on defending the arrogant powers of the world, on alliances with Zionism and the US and on fulfilling their demands," he wrote.

Khamenei also criticised the Saudi response to last year's deadly hajj stampede, which killed some 2,300 foreign pilgrims, including an estimated 464 Iranians.

"The ruthless and criminal Saudi men locked half-alive injured people up along with the dead in tightly closed containers and martyred them," he said.

Because of Saudi rulers' oppressive behaviour towards God's guests, the world of Islam must fundamentally reconsider the management of the two holy places and the issue of hajj - Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

"Instead of apology and remorse and judicial prosecution of those who were directly at fault in that horrifying event, Saudi rulers – with utmost shamelessness and insolence – refused to allow the formation of an international Islamic fact-finding committee".

The deaths triggered months of lingering animosity between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Some 60,000 Iranians took part last year, but have been effectively barred from this year's event after negotiations between the two countries fell apart.

This month's hajj will be the first time in almost three decades that Iranian pilgrims have not participated.

The two countries severed diplomatic relations in January after Saudi Arabia executed a prominent Shia cleric and angry Iranian crowds overran Saudi diplomatic missions.

Agencies contributed to this report