Iranian president to attend Islamic summit in Mecca

TEHRAN,Aug.7(MNA) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will attend an emergency Islamic summit in Mecca, an official at the Presidential Office announced on Monday. “Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will attend the summit at the invitation of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia,” Mohammad Reza Forqani, the director of the international affairs section of the Presidential Office, told. “The summit will be held in the city of Mecca on Mordad 24 and 25 (August 14 and 15) with heads of Muslim countries in attendance,” Forqani added. “The extraordinary summit will be held to discuss the developments in Muslims countries,” he stated. Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said on July 22 that King Abdullah had called for the emergency meeting to address risks of “sedition” threatening Muslim countries. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said on July 24 that the crisis in Bahrain should top the agenda of the Islamic summit. “We will welcome any meeting that brings together Muslim countries and will actively participate in it. But the crises are obvious, and it is also clear which countries are taking interventionist measures. If such a meeting is supposed to be held, resolving the issue of Bahrain” should be top of the agenda, Mehmanparast said at the time. Ahmadinejad’s participation in the summit will be of high significance given the tension recently created in relations between the two countries after a number of Iranian nationals, who had been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia for about five years, were executed for alleged involvement in drug trafficking without fair trial and without being granted consular access. After the report was announced, Iran decided to send a legal-consular delegation to the Persian Gulf kingdom to probe the issue, but Saudi Arabia has so far refused to issue visas to members of the delegation. In addition, the two countries have adopted opposite stances toward the developments occurring in Bahrain and Syria. King Abdullah has recently been invited by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to attend the XVI Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, which is scheduled to be held in Tehran from August 26 to 31.