Allahshukur Pashazadeh: "Problems a group of pilgrims faced while returning should not exaggerated"

What can you say about Hajj pilgrimage this year?

5-6 Azerbaijanis died during the pilgrimage last year, but such an accident has not happened this year. The only man died as a result of a car accident this year. Certainly, I think we should do special changes, concerning Hajj pilgrimage. There will even be changes in implementation of flights. The talks continue. Besides, we have problems concerning the reservation of hotels. Money should be allocated beforehand to reserve a hotel. The situation is getting better.

What are the problems the pilgrims faced with while returning?

A group of people exaggerated these problems, took advantage of price rises for Hajj pilgrimage. The problem is that there was disorder in some of the planes. Therefore the flights delayed. Fortunately, nobody died during the pilgrimage, except the man died during the car accident. He was buried there. As to the problems people faced with while returning, they were offered hotels and meals but they refused. They were told that sheikh deceives them. Counsellor of our embassy in Saudi Arabia Ogtay Gurbaov was there and offered them hotels. They refused again. Asked what the reason of this was they said that they do it deliberately. They said they have money and everything...

Do you think it was the subversion?

Yes, I do. Some want to hold rallies and express their discontent. Especially they want to take advantage of price rises. I do not deny the difficulties. 3 million people went to Hajj. Everything could happen. But to say that they were begging there. This is not true. My assistant Haji Salman Musayev and the counsellor of the embassy told me about it. All these hajjis have returned to Azerbaijan. But some of their belongings were sent to Dushanbe by mistake, some of them remained in Jeddah, We are trying to solve this problem now. I understand all these difficulties. As it was snowing in Dushanbe, the plane could not fly. We had signed contracts with their planes. I even talked to Ali Akbar Hashimi Rafsanjani about it, in spite of the fact that they had to return on January 18.

We got the information that the hajjis, who faced problems, plan to appeal to court on your office...

Let them do. If we did not discharge our obligations, this is another case. We have done everything we could. The problem happened because of technical reasons. Azerbaijani Embassy in the kingdom has also information why pilgrims could not come to their motherland.

Some people consider that, Caucasian Muslims Office creates this problem on purpose to hold monopoly.

To organize pilgrimage is under my competence and nobody can take this competence from me. It is my duty to organize high level visit. If we had mistake this year, we will try to remove it next year. To appeal to the court is their business.