As mentioned earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been invited to attend the funeral of Iran's late Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei next month. Sources in New Delhi say that India is yet to decide on its representation for the Supreme leader’s state funeral programme in Iran next month.
Here are more updates from our reporter Divya A in New Delhi. Divya A reports that Modi is among a host of world leaders who have received formal invitations on behalf of President Pezeshkian, including those from China, Russia, Qatar, France and Pakistan. On Friday, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had announced that a Pakistani delegation will attend the funeral of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Prime Minister Modi’s last official bilateral visit to Iran was in May 2016, when he had met Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and then President Hassan Rouhani to sign a trilateral agreement for the development of the Chabahar Port. Two years later, in February 2018, President Rouhani made an official visit to India, over the invitation of PM Modi, when he visited New Delhi and Hyderabad.
Modi and Pezeshkian had last met on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia, in October 2024, during which PM Modi had invited Pezeshkian to visit India.
In 2024, after the deaths of 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 through a post on X, India had also declared a one-day state mourning on May 21, 2024.
India formally condoled the death of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on March 5, almost a week after his death. Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri had visited the Iranian Embassy in New Delhi to sign the official condolence book.
