ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Army Staff and Chief of Defence Forces Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir led a high-level delegation on Friday to pay their respects to Iran’s late supreme leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, who was killed in airstrikes on the first day of the US-Iran war, as his funeral rites commenced in Tehran.
The delegation was received by Iran’s entire senior leadership, including the president, foreign minister and parliament speaker, as it arrived to attend the funeral rites.
According to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), PM Shehbaz recalled the “lasting contributions” of the late supreme leader for Islam and paid rich tribute to Khamenei, who the prime minister said guided the Iranian nation for decades with “remarkable wisdom and sagacity”.
“The prime minister expressed full solidarity with Supreme Leader, His Eminence Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei, President Dr Masoud Pezeshkian and the brotherly people of Iran in this moment of national grief and prayed to Allah Almighty for forgiveness of the departed leader,” it said, adding that PM Shehbaz subsequently departed for Istanbul for his official visit to Turkiye.
CDF Munir and Naqvi also met FM Araghchi for a meeting in which they paid tribute to Khamenei.
The prime minister was earlier received by Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni, Pakistan’s Ambassador to Iran Imran Ahmed Siddiqui, and senior Pakistani and Iranian diplomatic officials upon arrival at Mehrabad Airport.
CDF Munir was received by Iran’s defence minister Seyyed Majid Ibn Reza, interior minister, and senior civilian and military officials upon his arrival.
The delegation accompanying the prime minister included National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, PPP Secretary General Nayyar Bukhari, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, and other parliamentarians, who will also attend the funeral ceremony.
Funeral processions for Khamenei will begin on July 4 in Tehran and conclude on July 9 with his burial in his hometown of Mashhad, with additional ceremonies planned in Qom and Iraq between these dates.
Iran’s ruling clerics are preparing days of mass funeral rites for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as a show of public devotion to the Islamic Republic. “The body of the martyred Leader of the Islamic Revolution has arrived at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla,” Iranian state media IRNA wrote on Telegram, using the complex’s official name, said earlier today.
Senate Chairman Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani also arrived in Tehran earlier today with a high-level delegation to attend the funeral prayers and burial of Khamenei, according to PTV, which shared the update on X. Iranian officials welcomed the Pakistani delegation upon its arrival in Tehran.
The body of Khamenei was lying in state in a vast hall in Tehran on Friday as clerics, officials, foreign dignitaries, and other mourners paid their respects ​after his 37-year rule.
Iran is staging a week of mass funeral processions for Khamenei — killed in February by US-Israeli strikes at the start of a four-month war — in a show of public devotion ‌to the Islamic republic’s theocratic state and revolutionary fire.
Khamenei’s body was expected to be taken to Qom, Najaf and Kerbala, the great centres of Iran and Iraq, before being laid to rest on Thursday in Mashhad, home to the country’s holiest pilgrim shrine.
