ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi traveled to Iran on Friday to participate in the burial of the nation’s late Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, according to Iranian state media, as Tehran prepared to lay the country’s longtime leader to rest.
The body of Iran’s late supreme leader, who perished in United States-Israeli strikes that ignited the Middle East conflict in late February, was transported to Tehran’s Grand Mosalla complex on Friday ahead of his funeral.
Preparations for Khamenei’s public funeral, initially delayed during the height of the war, are underway as Iran and the US observe a fragile ceasefire following a preliminary agreement to halt hostilities.
Millions of citizens and a delegation of foreign dignitaries are anticipated to attend Saturday’s official ceremony for Ali Khamenei, with Tehran’s chief negotiator urging a massive turnout to honor his memory.
“Senator Syed Mohsen Reza Naqvi arrived in Tehran and was welcomed by his Iranian counterpart,” reported Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency on Friday.
“Naqvi is scheduled to participate in the historic farewell ceremony and burial of the Late Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.”
Photographs showed mourners carrying Khamenei’s coffin, draped in Iran’s tricolor flag, into the Grand Mosalla, one of the Islamic Republic’s most significant ceremonial venues.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will also travel to Iran to attend the funeral of the country’s late supreme leader before visiting Türkiye to discuss regional security and economic cooperation and address a business forum, Pakistan’s foreign office said on Thursday.
The July 3-5 visit follows Pakistan’s assumption of a prominent diplomatic role in efforts to end months of conflict between Iran and the United States. Islamabad, working alongside Qatar, has hosted and facilitated contacts between the two sides that culminated in the signing of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding last month, establishing a ceasefire and a framework for negotiations toward a permanent agreement.
China, Afghanistan, and Iran’s neighbors in the Caucasus region said they would also be sending representatives.
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