Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has departed from Islamabad on a one-day official visit to Iran to attend the funeral of Iran’s late Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The funeral rites of the Iranian leader are being held in Tehran, with leaders and dignitaries from various countries in attendance.
The Prime Minister is accompanied by Speaker of the National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq and Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar. Information Minister Atta Tarar, Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, PPP Secretary General Nayyar Bukhari, and Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah are also part of the delegation.
During the visit, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is expected to convey condolences on behalf of the government and people of Pakistan to the Iranian leadership.
He will reaffirm Pakistan’s solidarity with the people of Iran during this period of grief and mourning.
Following his engagements in Tehran, the Prime Minister is scheduled to travel to Istanbul for a separate bilateral visit to Türkiye.
Iran is preparing days of mass funeral rites for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as a show of public devotion to the Islamic Republic.
Iran’s supreme leader was killed by U.S. and Israeli strikes in their first attack of the war and the funeral events will begin over the weekend in Tehran, with mass processions planned next week in Qom and Mashhad and ceremonies in Iraq.
“The large public turnout at the funeral procession of the martyred leader and the other martyrs will, in effect, be another referendum for the Islamic Republic,” Qom Friday prayer leader Ayatollah Mohammad Saidi declared to state media. If they do see it as a referendum, authorities are not leaving the result to chance.
Read more: Iran prepares to bury Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with week of mass mourning
They hope to mobilise millions of supporters to flood Iran’s cities, laying on transport, accommodation and food, to proclaim the might of their theocratic state after it survived what they saw as an existential war.
Khamenei’s death, and the succession of his son Mojtaba as Iran’s third supreme leader, in a conflict with its greatest foes, mark an epochal moment in the Islamic Republic’s 47-year history. Mojtaba, dangerously wounded in the strike that killed his father, has not been seen in any new image since the war began.