Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian is reportedly planning to attend the funeral of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that will begin in Tehran on July 4.
The six-day ceremony is expected to draw millions of Iranians and representatives of around 30 foreign countries. The Iranian ISNA news agency on Tuesday quoted an ethnic Armenian member of Iran’s parliament, Ara Shahverdian, as saying that Pashinian “expressed readiness” to join them when he met with Iranian Vice President Hamid Pourmohammadi in Yerevan late last week. The Armenian government has not yet made any statements on his participation.
Khamenei was killed by U.S. and Israeli forces at the start of their air strikes against Iran on February 28. Pashinian praised his contribution to “the development of Armenia-Iran relations” in a letter of condolences sent to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. He afterwards congratulated Khamenei’s son Mojtaba on becoming the Islamic Republic’s new supreme leader.
Yerevan reacted cautiously to the war. It called for a diplomatic solution to the conflict but refrained from criticizing the U.S.-Israeli military campaign. Also, Pashinian’s government pressed ahead with plans to open a U.S.-administered transit corridor for Azerbaijan that would run along the Armenian-Iranian border.
Iranian officials, notably Ali Khamenei’s top foreign policy aide, voiced serious concern over the planned Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) in the months leading up to the war. They feared that the transit arrangement could lead to U.S. security presence along the border. Senior Iranian diplomats reiterated Tehran’s concerns in late May.
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