- First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber takes power.
- The confirmation comes after “hours of intense searching.”
- Bad weather caused the accident, Iranian state media claim.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and the country's Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian have died in a helicopter crash.
The news was confirmed Monday by Vice President Mohsen Mansouri in a statement on social media and state television.
“Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, East Azerbaijan Province Governor Malek Rahmati and Mehdi Mousavi, the head of Raisi's guard team, were also on board the crashed plane,” the News Agency previously said. of the Islamic Republic (IRNA).
He added that Mohammad Ali Al-e-Hashem, representative of the Supreme Leader in East Azerbaijan province, also accompanied President Raisi, 63, and other officials.
Earlier, a senior Iranian official, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the event, said Reuters: “President Raisi, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and all the passengers of the helicopter died in the accident.”
Iran Further The news agency also confirmed that “all passengers on the helicopter” were “martyrs.”
The helicopter carrying President Raisi and Iran's Foreign Minister crashed on Sunday while flying over mountainous terrain in dense fog in the Varzaqan region of the country's East Azerbaijan province.
According to Iranian state media, bad weather caused the accident and complicated rescue efforts in the northwestern region of the country. The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) said Raisi was flying in a US-made Bell 212 helicopter.
The head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, Pir-Hossein Kolivand, in a semi-official interview Tasnim The news agency reported: “No trace of survivors has been seen after the discovery of the crashed helicopter site.”
He further revealed that rescue teams found the helicopter crash site after “hours of exhaustive search in a mountainous region” in Iran's East Azerbaijan province.
President Raisi, Foreign Minister Amirabdollahian and other senior officials were returning to Iran after attending a inauguration ceremony for a dam on Iran's border with the Republic of Azerbaijan when the ill-fated helicopter crashed on Sunday afternoon.
Following the death of the Iranian president, the first vice president of the Islamic Republic, Mohammad Mokhber, will assume power after the supreme leader issues an approval, according to Article 131 of the Iranian Constitution.
