An official source of the Ministry of Hajj of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia today refuted comments issued yesterday by Iraq's outgoing Prime Minister Ibrahim Al-Jaafary in which he said the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have not facilitated the entrance of Iraqi pilgrims wishing to perform Hajj and that the Kingdom has not taken into consideration the wish of increasing numbers of Iraqis to perform the ritual since the collapse of Saddam Hussein regime. The source said Ibrahim Al-Jaafary has led his country's Hajj mission before being appointed prime minister in Iraq and he well knows the great understanding, the unprecedented efforts and considerable flexibility demonstrated by all Hajj concerned authorities in the Kingdom to facilitate matters for Iraqi pilgrims and how the number of Iraqis coming to perform Hajj has increase over the last two years by more than 40 percent of the official quota of Iraq as per resolutions of the OIC foreign ministers who fixed one thousand pilgrims for every million of any country's Muslim population and how the number has more than doubled than during Saddam Hussein's rule. The source noted that the Kingdom has also accepted the exaggerated estimated number of Iraq's population and noted the lack of fairness of the Iraqi authorities, then led by Ibrahim Al-Jaafary, in distributing the Iraqi quota among their people or the control of issuing travel documents for Iraqis wishing to perform Hajj, putting them subject to regional, racial and even sectarian considerations. --More ssss 22 16 Local Time 19 16 GMT
