Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Saturday that Iran’s late supreme leader Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei would be remembered for generations for his wisdom, leadership and profound influence on Iran and the broader region.

“The late supreme leader’s wisdom, leadership and profound influence on Iran and the wider region will be remembered for generations,” said PM Shehbaz in a post on X.

Khamenei was killed at the age of 86 on February 28 during a joint US-Israeli air strike in Tehran on his residence. His six-day funeral and memorial processions drew several world leaders to pay respect to the slain supreme leader.

Funeral processions for Khamenei have begun today in Tehran and will conclude on July 9 with his burial in his hometown of Mashhad, with additional ceremonies planned in Qom and Iraq between these dates.

The prime minister, in his statement, said that he paid his respects and conveyed deepest condolences on behalf of the government and people of Pakistan to the Government and brotherly people of Iran at the funeral ceremony. 

While reaffirming Islamabad’s solidarity with the Iranian people, PM Shehbaz said, “As a brotherly neighbour, Pakistan stands with Iran in this time of grief.” 

“To demonstrate our solidarity with the Iranian people, I was accompanied by a high powered delegation including DPM Ishaq Dar, CDF & COAS Field Marshal Asim Munir and senior parliamentarians, including Chairman Pakistan People’s Party Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Speaker of the National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq,” he added.

Read: Iranians flock to week-long funeral rites for Khamenei

A day earlier, PM Shehbaz and CDF Munir attended the funeral ceremony of Iran’s slain supreme leader Khamenei.

During a day visit to Iran, the prime minister expressed full solidarity with the supreme leader, his eminence Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei, President Masoud Pezeshkian and the brotherly people of Iran in this moment of national grief and prayed to Allah Almighty for forgiveness of the departed leader.

Critical moment for Islamic Republic

Khamenei’s coffin was unveiled late on Thursday to a throng of sobbing supporters, swaying and beating their heads in time to a sung lament as flowers were thrown from the bier into the crowd. On Friday the coffin — and those of family members killed with him — was ​laid in state in the great prayer hall built to honour his predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The funeral came at a critical moment for Iran, where the clerical rulers backed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are riding ​high from surviving what they saw as an existential war against their greatest and most powerful foes.

But nearly five decades after the 1979 revolution, and for all the official ⁠proclamations of national unity in the run-up to Khamenei’s funeral, the Islamic Republic has rarely been so internally fractured.

Tehran streets were tightly controlled, with military and police vehicles lining the major roads and police and members of the black-shirted volunteer Basij paramilitary force patrolling on motorbikes. Iran warned the United States and Israel against any attacks during the funeral.