PM Modi receives official invitation to attend Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's funeral in Mashhad

NEW DELHI: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the funeral of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was assassinated in a joint US-Israeli strike on February 28. The funeral ceremonies, which will begin in Tehran on July 4, will conclude in Khamenei's hometown of Mashhad on July 9. The Iranian Embassy in Delhi sent an official invitation to the Ministry of External Affairs on Tuesday.

The funeral of the 86-year-old Khamenei was originally scheduled to be held in March. However, it was postponed due to the prolonged war. Apart from Modi, world leaders from China, Russia, Qatar, France and Pakistan have also been invited to the ceremony. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had earlier announced that he would attend Khamenei's funeral. However, it is not certain whether Modi would attend the ceremony.

PM Modi last visited Iran in May 2016. During the visit, Modi met Khamenei and then Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and signed a trilateral agreement to develop the Chabahar port. Two years later, in February 2018, Hassan Rouhani visited India at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and visited Delhi and Hyderabad. Modi and current President Masoud Pezeshkian last met at the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, in October 2024. At that time, Modi had invited Pezeshkian to India.

When the then Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian were killed in a helicopter crash in 2024, then Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar represented India in Tehran. India also declared a day of national mourning on May 21, 2024. India also expressed its official condolences when Khamenei was killed.