Millions Mourn in Tehran as Iran's New Supreme Leader Remains Hidden and US Nuclear Talks Hang in the Balance
Iran is in the grip of an extraordinary national spectacle. Four months after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed aged 86 in a joint United States-Israeli airstrike on February 28, his body is lying in state at Tehran's Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla, drawing vast crowds in what Iranian officials say could become the largest funeral in the Islamic Republic's history. As CBS News reported, authorities expect between 15 and 20 million mourners to join events spanning five cities across Iran and Iraq between July 4 and July 9. Crowds of men rhythmically beat their chests in the intense summer heat, some chanting for revenge, according to eyewitness accounts from Reuters and AFP journalists on the ground. Tehran has deliberately timed the ceremonies to coincide with America's 250th Independence Day celebrations, a piece of symbolism that has not gone unnoticed in Washington.
Looming over every moment of the mourning is the conspicuous absence of Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei. The son of the slain ayatollah was announced as his father's successor on March 9 after the Assembly of Experts convened under intense pressure from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Yet as CNN reported, Mojtaba has not made a single public appearance since the war began, communicating with supporters only through written statements shared by Iranian media, never once showing his face or using his voice. According to CBS News, US intelligence indicates that officials at the highest levels of the Iranian government do not know where Mojtaba is and have no way to contact him directly, relying instead on a network of couriers. He is thought to have been wounded in the same airstrike that killed his father, his mother, and his wife.
The political stakes of his invisibility are enormous. The Atlantic Council has noted that Mojtaba Khamenei is considered more hardline than his father and has close ties to some of the most ideologically extremist elements within the clerical establishment. His disappearance has left a power vacuum that the IRGC, whose commander Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi was prominently seated in the front row at the funeral prayers, appears eager to fill. Iranian officials have publicly projected an image of normalcy, claiming Mojtaba is directing Tehran's negotiations with Washington. Yet as CNN's analysis observed, the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding — signed at Versailles in June by President Trump, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, and Pakistan's prime minister as mediator — is already deeply contested, with Iran interpreting the document in ways that do not even require unimpeded access to the Strait of Hormuz, the single issue the Trump administration cited as the primary rationale for the agreement.
The MOU, described by CNN as among the oddest international agreements in recent memory at just two pages in length, declares a permanent end to military operations and launches a 60-day window for nuclear negotiations. It commits the US to issuing Treasury waivers for Iranian oil exports and releasing frozen Iranian funds, while Iran commits to maintaining the status quo on its nuclear programme pending a final deal. However, as CNN reported, Vice President JD Vance, the deal's lead negotiator, has said the document's words do not matter, while Iran treats the MOU as equivalent to a binding treaty. In Doha this week, US negotiators met with Qatari mediators rather than Iranian counterparts, and there is active dispute over whether lower-level talks are even happening. Meanwhile, Tehran has formally paused its diplomacy with Washington for the duration of the funeral.
The funeral's timing places extraordinary pressure on the diplomatic calendar. According to Al Jazeera, Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif — whose country played a central role in securing the April ceasefire and the June MOU — is attending the state funeral, as are representatives from more than 100 nations, including senior Chinese and Russian officials, according to Bloomberg. President Trump, meanwhile, is scheduled to attend the NATO summit in Ankara on July 7 and 8, where allied leaders will press for renewed commitments on European defence spending and the future of the alliance's support for Ukraine. Whether Mojtaba Khamenei emerges publicly at his father's burial in Mashhad on July 9 — the same day Trump wraps up in Ankara — will be the single most consequential political signal of the week: a visible leader could steady Iran's negotiating hand, while his continued absence risks deepening the uncertainty that makes a final nuclear deal so elusive.