New Delhi: Kashmir’s chief cleric and former Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq met Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in the national capital Friday, a development likely to attract attention in New Delhi.
He was among the dignitaries invited by the Iranian embassy here for an event organised at the Oberoi hotel on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit, for which Pezeshkian arrived Friday.
The interaction of religious leaders, intellectuals and other dignitaries, is being hosted by the Iranian Ambassador to India, Dr Mohammad Fathali.
Mirwaiz, who is based in Srinagar, arrived Friday for the event. He also attended an exhibition commemorating the children killed in Minab.
He posted pictures of himself at the event, which is to be followed by dinner.
In March this year, a series of now-deleted social media posts by Iran’s embassy in India had drawn ire over Tehran’s positioning on Kashmir and “giving a sectarian colour” to support extended by the people of India, after the US and Israel launched surprise attacks on the country.
The invite to Mirwaiz comes against the backdrop of long-standing sensitivities between Iran and India surrounding Kashmir. India maintains that the entire region of Kashmir is Indian territory, and that the subject of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir is a “bilateral” issue to be addressed within the framework of India-Pakistan ties.
However, Kashmir has often been the subject of tensions between India and Iran. In 2019, after India revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, the then Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—who was killed in the US and Israel airstrikes—had publicly expressed concern over the situation of Muslims in the region. India had issued a sharp response.
Incidentally, Ali Khamenei had also commented on the Northeast Delhi riots in 2020, and in 2024, referred to Muslims in India alongside those in Gaza, saying: “We cannot consider ourselves to be Muslims if we are oblivious to the suffering that a Muslim is enduring in #Myanmar, #Gaza, #India, or any other place. The enemies of Islam have always tried to make us indifferent with regard to our shared identity as an Islamic Ummah.”
Despite the occasional tensions, India and Iran have maintained bilateral relations. One of the key pictures emerging from the sidelines of the BRICS Summit on Friday was that of Modi holding the hands of Pezeshkian and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the same time.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
Also Read: At bilateral with Iran’s Pezeshkian, Modi calls for ‘freedom of navigation’ in West Asia