Iran invites PM Modi to Ayatollah Khamenei’s state funeral ceremonies.
India has not yet decided its official representation for the event.
Invitation highlights continuing India-Iran diplomatic and strategic engagement.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the multi-city state funeral for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, The Indian Express reported.
Khamenei, 86, was killed in a joint US-Israeli airstrike on his compound on February 28. His burial was postponed from March due to the ongoing war, according to the newspaper.
The Iranian Embassy in New Delhi, which received the invite two days ago, delivered the formal invitation to India's Ministry of External Affairs.. Funeral ceremonies will run from July 4 in Tehran and conclude with Khamenei's burial in his hometown, Mashhad, on July 9.
Sources in New Delhi told the newspaper that the government is yet to decide on its official representation for the state funeral.
To formally condole Khamenei's death, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri visited the Iranian Embassy on March 5 to sign the official condolence book.
Pezeshkian extended invitations to leaders from China, Russia, Qatar, France, and Pakistan.
History Of Bilateral Ties
PM Modi last visited Iran in May 2016. During that trip, he met Khamenei and then-President Hassan Rouhani to sign a trilateral agreement to develop Chabahar Port.
President Rouhani later visited New Delhi and Hyderabad in February 2018 at the invitation of PM Modi.
PM Modi and President Pezeshkian last met in October 2024 on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia, during which PM Modi invited Pezeshkian to visit India.
In 2024, after the deaths of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in a helicopter crash, then Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar had visited Tehran to represent India.
He led the Indian delegation at the official memorial and condolence ceremony, along with senior MEA officials. While PM Modi had expressed his condolences in a post on X, India had also declared a one-day state mourning on May 21, 2024.
