ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian arrived in Iraq on Tuesday to participate in the funeral ceremony of Iran's late supreme leader Ali Khamenei (1939 - 2026), Tehran's state media reported, adding that he was received by Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, with whom he is set to hold talks.
Pezeshkian arrived at the international airport of Iraq's southern shrine province of Najaf, "where he was officially received by the prime minister of Iraq and a number of senior national and local Iraqi officials," the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported.
The Iranian president "traveled to Iraq to attend the reception ceremony for the body of the martyred leader of the Islamic Revolution, Grand Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei," IRNA added, noting that Pezeshkian is set to "meet and hold talks" with the Iraqi prime minister, without providing details on the substance of the discussions.
Earlier in the day, Zaidi had directed that “official working hours be suspended tomorrow, Wednesday, to coincide with the funeral procession” of Khamenei, the premier’s office said in a statement.
Head of Iraq's Security Media Cell (SMC) Lieutenant General Saad Maan announced on Monday that Iraq had completed all logistical and security preparations for the procession, noting that the late Iranian leader’s body is set to arrive in the country on Tuesday evening.
Meanwhile, Ali al-Badri, head of the media department at the shrine of Abbas ibn Ali - son of the first Shia Imam, Ali ibn Abi Talib - in Iraq's southern holy city of Karbala, told Rudaw on Tuesday that Khamenei’s body is expected to be transferred first to the shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf, before moving on to the shrines of his sons Abbas and Hussain ibn Ali in Karbala on Wednesday afternoon.
Khamenei was killed on February 28 on the first day of the joint US-Israeli aerial campaign launched against Iran along with several of the country's top leaders and commanders.
While several prior dates had been set for the funeral, the six-week Iran war and ensuing intermittent tit-for-tat military escalations delayed the ceremony.
The bodies of the late supreme leader and several others killed alongside him were transferred to a prominent mosque in Tehran on Friday a day before an official funeral ceremony took place Saturday and Sunday, ahead of mass processions on Monday.
Khamenei’s final burial is set to take place in the northern shrine city of Mashhad in northern Iran on Thursday.
