Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has extended a formal invitation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the funeral of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to be held in the first week of July, diplomatic sources said on Wednesday.
“The Iranian President has formally extended an invitation to the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, to attend the funeral of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,” sources said. New Delhi was, however, yet to confirm the invite.
The funeral of Khamenei will start on July 4 and end with his burial in the holy city of Mashhad in northeastern Iran, which was also his hometown, on July 9.
The 86-year-old was killed on the very first day of Israel and US airstrikes on Tehran on February 28. Khamenei had been serving as the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic for 36 years. The funeral of the Ayatollah could not take place earlier as Iran was at war with the US and Israel.
The funeral will commence with a farewell ceremony at Tehran’s Grand Imam Khomeini Mosalla on Saturday, July 4, and Sunday, July 5, according to the spokesperson for the commemoration headquarters. The main funeral procession in Tehran is scheduled for Monday, July 6, during which the bodies of four additional martyrs—Dr. Mesbah-ol-Hoda Bagheri, Seyyedeh Boshra Hosseini Khamenei, Zahra Haddad Adel, and Zahra Mohammadi Golpaygani—will be escorted alongside the martyred leader.
On Tuesday, July 7, funeral ceremonies will be held in the holy city of Qom, where prayers will be offered over the leader’s body.
The procession will then travel to Iraq on Wednesday, July 8, following repeated requests from Iraqi tribes, scholars, elites, and political and religious figures. Funeral rites will be held in the cities of Najaf and Karbala, with the Iraqi government responsible for announcing specific times and locations.
The burial is scheduled for Thursday, July 9-coinciding with the night of Imam Sajjad’s martyrdom-at the Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad.
Political figures, elites and official delegations from across the world will pay tributes to the late leader, with timing and venue details to be released by the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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