Tehran (AFP) – A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was involved in an “accident” in bad weather on Sunday, state media reported. A search is underway, but there is no word yet on the president's condition.
Publication of: change:
2 minutes
State television reported that “an accident occurred with the helicopter carrying the president” in the Joffa region of East Azerbaijan's western province.
The Islamic Republic's state media reported that rescue teams were on the way to search for him and other officials, adding that Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdullahian may also have been on the plane.
“Hard weather conditions and dense fog are making it difficult for rescue teams to reach the accident scene,” state television said in an on-screen news bulletin.
The accident occurred in the mountainous forest area of Dismar, near the town of Varzagan, state news agency IRNA said.
Raisi, 63, was in the province on Sunday to work with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev on a dam project on the border between the two countries.
His convoy included three helicopters, and two others “reached their destination safely,” Tasnim news agency said.
The foreign minister and local officials were traveling in the same helicopter as Raisi, IRNA said.
The reformist Sharg daily also reported, “The helicopter carrying the president crashed, while the other two helicopters landed safely.''
Later, Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said one of the helicopters “made a hard landing due to bad weather.”
He added that it was “difficult to establish communications” with the aircraft.
Years of crisis and conflict
Raisi has been the Islamic Republic's president since June 2021, replacing moderate Hassan Rouhani, during a period in which Iran faced crisis and conflict.
He took the helm of a country in the grips of a severe social crisis and an economy strained by U.S. sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear program.
In Iran, the death in custody of Iranian Kurdish Mahsa Amini in September 2022 sparked a wave of large-scale protests.
In March 2023, regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia signed a surprise deal to restore diplomatic relations.
The war in Gaza, which began on October 7, has once again heightened tensions in the region, leading to a series of escalating retaliations that led Iran to fire hundreds of missiles and rockets directly at Israel in April 2024.
Mr. Raiashi was born in 1960 in the holy city of Mashhad in northeastern Iran, and rose to high office at an early age. At just 20 years old, he was appointed prosecutor general of Karaj, second only to Tehran, in the wake of the 1979 Islamic revolution that overthrew the US-backed monarchy.
He served as Tehran's prosecutor general from 1989 to 1994, served as deputy head of the judiciary for 10 years from 2004, and became the country's prosecutor general in 2014.
His black turban signifies that he is a direct descendant of Islam's prophet Muhammad, and he is one rank below the Ayatollah in the Shiite clergy, a religion known as “Khojatore Ram'' – literally “proof of Islam''. has the title of
© 2024 AFP
