PM Shehbaz departs for Tehran to attend funeral of Iran’s assassinated supreme leader Ali Khamenei
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ISLAMABAD – Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday departed from Islamabad for his one-day visit to Iran to attend the funeral of Iran’s late Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Syed Ali Khamenei. Speaker of the National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Senator Muhammad Ishaq Dar, Minister of Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar, Chairman of Pakistan People’s Party Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Secretary General of Pakistan People’s Party Nayyer Hussain Bukhari, and Chief Minister of Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah are accompanying the prime minister. PM Shehbaz will participate in the funeral rites of Iran’s late supreme leader in Tehran. On behalf of the Pakistani people and government, the premier will express heartfelt condolences to the Iranian leadership and the bereaved families and reaffirm Pakistan’s complete solidarity with the brotherly Iranian nation in this hour of grief. Thereafter, the prime minister will proceed from Tehran to Istanbul for his bilateral visit to Turkiye. The funeral ceremonies for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei began today as his body was taken to the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla in central Tehran. He was 86 years old at the time of his reported martyrdom on February 28 during U.S.-Israeli strikes that, according to the account, triggered a regional conflict. The mourning period is expected to continue for six days, with commemorative events taking place across key religious and cultural centers, including Tehran, Qom, Najaf, and Mashhad, reflecting solidarity among many across the Islamic world. Iranian authorities anticipate an exceptionally large turnout, estimating that between 15 million and 20 million people could participate in the funeral processions, making it one of the country’s largest public gatherings in recent history. The farewell ceremony is also expected to draw extensive international participation. Delegations from around 100 countries, including heads of state,