PM Shehbaz to attend swearing-in ceremony of Iran’s President-elect Pezeshkian

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will travel to Iran to attend the swearing-in ceremony of President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian, a Foreign Office spokesperson said on Thursday.

“The prime minister will attend the ceremony at the invitation of the Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf,” Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch announced at her press briefing.

“The visit attests to the commitment by the two countries to strengthen leadership level engagement and bilateral cooperation,” the spokesperson remarked.

PM Shehbaz had previously congratulated Pezeshkian on winning the presidential election in Iran.

“I look forward to working closely with President-elect Dr. Pezeshkian to further strengthen Pakistan-Iran bilateral ties and promote regional peace and stability,” the premiere wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

Pezeshkian is seen as a reformist in a country that has been under a theocratic Islamic rule since the secular Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi was ousted in 1979.

Pezeshkian’s pre-election promises included promoting a pragmatic foreign policy, improving prospects for political pluralism and social liberation, as well as working towards the revival of a 2015 nuclear pact with major world powers.

However, critics are skeptical of these manifestos as well as Pezeshkian’s propensity to fulfill them due to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei de facto hold of the Shia-majority Islamic republic.

The election was called in the wake of President Ebrahim Raisi’s death in a helicopter crash in May.