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Iran's President Raisi Dies in Helicopter Crash

By
M Ashraf Siddiqui
19/05/2024
in

Tehran, Iran, 20 May 2024 (IRNA)

Ebrahim Raisi, the 8th president of Iran, has been martyred after a helicopter carrying him and his entourage crashed in Varzaqan region in East Azarbaijan Province, Northwest of the country.  

The Iranian government has held an emergency meeting following the news that the wreckage of a helicopter carrying President Ebrahim Raisi was found in a remote region in Iran’s northwest.

Vice President Mohammad Mokhber led the emergency meeting of the Iranian cabinet Monday morning.

Raisi’s helicopter, along with two more copters, was en route to Tabriz City on Sunday after he inaugurated Qiz Qalasi Dam at the border with the Azerbaijan Republic earlier in the day.

Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, East Azarbaijan Province’s Governor Malek Rahmati, and Mehdi Mousavi, the head of Raisi’s guard team were on board the crashed aircraft as well. Mohammad Ali Al-e-Hashem, the Supreme Leader’s representative in the province also accompanied them.

Head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) says that no survivors have been found at the site where the helicopter of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi crashed in northwest Iran.

“No trace of survivors has been seen after the discovery of the site of the crashed helicopter,” said Pir-Hossein Kolivand early on Monday in an interview with the semi-official Tasnim news agency.

Kolivand revealed earlier in the day that the site of the crash involving President Raisi and senior officials accompanying him had been found after hours of extensive search in a mountainous region in the province of East Azerbaijan.

President Raisi’s helicopter crashed afternoon on Sunday in Varzaqan region as he was returning with Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and several others from a ceremony to inaugurate a dam on Iran’s border with the Republic of Azerbaijan.

46 rapid response and rescue teams  including technicians and doctors, from the provinces of East Azarbaijan, Tehran, Alborz, Ardabil, Zanjan and West Azarbaijan were mobilized to help in the search and rescue operation, the IRCS said on Sunday night.

Earlier, IRCS Chief Pir Hossein Koulivand, who is leading the search and rescue operation, said that inclement weather conditions and the impassability of the area are hampering the operation. Search operation using drones and helicopters impossible as well, she had said.

Ebrahim Raisi, 64, was born in the city of Mashhad. He was elected president in 2021. Before that, he served as the judiciary chief, the general prosecutor and the vice-chairman of the Assembly of Experts. Raisi was also a member of the Expediency Council.

World leaders had reacted to the news of the Iranian president’s helicopter crash with all expressing concern and solidarity with the Iranian people and government. Among these included Pakistan, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, President Asif Ali Zardari and Parliament Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq ; Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan; European Union; United States; Saudi Arabia; Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyef, who along with Raisi inaugurated the joint Qiz Qalasi Dam at the border between the two countries earlier on Sunday;  The Armenian foreign ministry;  India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi;  Afghanistan; Iraq’s President Abdul Latif Rashid, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' Al Sudani, The Iraqi Red Crescent, top officials in Iraq’s Kurdistan region President Nechirvan Barzani and Prime Minister Masrour Barzani; The Egyptian Foreign Ministry; Lebanon’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs; The Foreign Ministry of the United Arab Emirates; Oman, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, Yemen, Russia and Venezuela all expressed their concern as well. 

Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani; European Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič; Palestinian resistance movements, Islamic Jihad and Hamas, The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

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