New Delhi: Iran Tuesday formally invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the state funeral and burial ceremony of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The funeral procession is set to begin on 4 July and will continue until Khamenei’s burial on 9 July.
Iranian sources informed ThePrint that the formal invitation addressed to PM Modi was handed over to the Ministry of External Affairs via a note verbale.
“Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian formally invited Prime Minister Modi to attend the multi-day state funeral and burial ceremonies for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei,” said one of the sources.
As the invitation was handed over Tuesday, there has been no confirmation yet from India on whether the invite has been accepted by Modi, or about the composition of the delegation.
India has not publicly condemned the killing of Khamenei following an attack by the US and Israel on Iran on 28 February.
Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri had signed the condolence book at the Embassy of Iran in New Delhi on 5 March. It was the first message of sympathy sent by the government of India to Iran following the death of Khamenei.
The funeral procession begins in Tehran on 4 July. Four additional bodies of Khamenei’s family members, Mesbah-ol-Hoda Bagheri, Seyyedeh Boshra Hosseini Khamenei, Zahra Haddad Adel, and Zahra Mohammadi Golpaygani, will be escorted alongside Khamenei’s.
The procession will proceed to the city of Qom on 7 July, where prayers are set to be held. From there, it will continue to the cities of Najaf and Karbala before reaching Mashhad on 9 July, where they will be interred.
Multiple delegations are expected to pay their respects during the funeral procession. The war between the US, Israel and Iran continued for almost 40 days, before a fragile ceasefire was agreed to on 8 April. On 17 June, Iran and the US signed a memorandum of understanding to extend the cessation of hostilities and negotiate a larger peace deal.
The first round of negotiations between the US and Iran to take the agreement forward was hosted last weekend in Switzerland and mediated by Pakistan and Qatar. Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz for almost four months in response to the joint US-Israeli attacks.
India has been in touch with both US and Iran and has formally welcomed the MoU, which has opened space for a new set of direct negotiations between Washington and Tehran. Iranian Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araghchi travelled to New Delhi last month to attend the BRICS Foreign Ministers’ Meeting.
India has traditionally been a close economic partner of Iran until the imposition of US sanctions on the Iranian oil sector in 2019. India and Iran also agreed to co-develop the Chabahar Port, a project which has since seen New Delhi’s withdrawal after paying out its financial commitments, due to the imposition of US sanctions.
President Pezeshkian is yet to travel to India. Modi last visited Iran in May 2016, when he had called on Khamenei and held official discussions with then Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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