On July 8, ceremonies are scheduled in Iraq, including in Baghdad, Najaf and Karbala, where the body will be received by religious and political figures and taken to major Shia shrines.
The final funeral and burial ceremony is scheduled for July 9 at Imam Ali Reza shrine in the northeastern city of Mashhad, one of the holiest Shia sites.
“The large public turnout at the funeral procession of the martyred leader and the other martyrs will, in effect, be another referendum for the Islamic Republic,” Qom Friday prayer leader Ayatollah Mohammad Saidi declared to state media.
Khamenei’s assassination, and the succession of his son Mojtaba as Iran’s third supreme leader, in a war with its greatest foes, mark an epochal moment in the last 47 years in Iran.
Mojtaba, dangerously wounded in the US-Israeli strike that killed his father, has not been seen in any new image since the war began.
Meanwhile, Iran and the US concluded a round of indirect talks in Doha, mediators said on Thursday, as they kept up efforts to advance negotiations and lower tensions following recent exchanges of fire.
In June, Washington and Tehran agreed a memorandum of understanding, brokered by Pakistan and Qatar, which included a 60-day ceasefire pausing the war that broke out with US-Israeli attacks in late February, as well as the reopening of the blockaded Strait of Hormuz.
The 14-point deal also set a timeline for talks to permanently end the war and settle issues like arrangements for Hormuz, reconstruction funding for Iran and the future of Tehran’s nuclear programme.
