Teheran-Riyadh war of words heats up as Iranians miss pilgrimage

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif accused Saudi authorities of "bigoted extremism" late on Tuesday in an increasingly bitter war of words over Iran's exclusion from this year's hajj pilgrimage.

Javad Zarif was responding to a claim by Saudi Arabia's most senior cleric, Grand Mufti Abdulaziz al-Sheikh, that Iranians were "not Muslims".

"Indeed, no resemblance between Islam of Iranians and most Muslims, and bigoted extremism that Wahhabi top cleric and Saudi terror masters preach," Zarif tweeted.