A helicopter carrying President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran crashed on Sunday in a remote part of the country, according to Iranian state media, prompting a massive search-and-rescue operation amid bad weather and heavy fog.
Mr. Raisi, 63, was elected in 2021 and has long been a prominent figure in Iran. As president, he oversees all of the work of the government and is the second most powerful individual in Iran’s political structure after the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
It was not immediately known what caused the crash of the helicopter, which was also carrying Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian.
State television did not report on any casualties or the condition of the president, but it urged the public to pray for the safety of Mr. Raisi and those who were traveling with him. The president’s official website also posted a message requesting prayers, and clerics at two of Iran’s major Shia shrines in Qum and Mashhad led public services.
The crash comes at a delicate moment for international relations, just days after senior American and Iranian officials held talks through intermediaries to try to tamp down the threat of a wider conflict in the Middle East. The U.S. State Department said it was closely following the reports about the crash, and the White House said President Biden has been briefed.
State media reported that Brig. General Mohammad Bagheri, the head of the country’s Armed Forces, said the army and the Revolutionary Guards had been deployed to the search area, a few miles south of the border with Azerbaijan. At least 20 search and rescue teams were also involved in the effort, according to state media, which said that inclement weather was complicating the operation.
Videos posted to Instagram by the Iranian Red Crescent Society showed rescue teams trekking through fog and difficult terrain in search of the crash site.
Mr. Raisi had met with Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, earlier Sunday. At the time of the crash, a delegation of ministers was traveling with him in a convoy of three helicopters, state media reported, adding that the two other aircraft had reached their destinations.
Here are the latest developments:
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The government canceled a planned cabinet meeting and instead convened an emergency meeting with the country’s crisis management committee, state media reported.
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Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani of Iraq instructed his country’s interior ministry and other relevant parties to offer to help with the search for Mr. Raisi’s helicopter, according to Bassem al-Awadi, a spokesman for the Iraqi government. At the request of Iran, the European Union activated its Copernicus satellite system to offer emergency mapping services to help Iranian officials gain better visibility of the area where the crash is believed to have occurred, according to the bloc’s chief for crisis management, Janez Lenarcic.
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Iran’s law stipulates that if the president dies, power is transferred to the first vice president and an election must be called within six months. The first vice president is Mohammad Mokhber, a conservative politician.
