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Iranian President, Foreign Minister Die In Helicopter Crash

By RFE/RL May 20, 2024

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his companions, including Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, have been found dead at the site of a helicopter crash in northwest Iran.

Iranian state television on May 20 said the helicopter had crashed due to poor weather conditions.

Raisi's cabinet is holding an emergency meeting, state media said.

Iranian law stipulates that if the president dies, power is transferred to the first vice president. A council consisting of the speaker of parliament, the head of the judiciary, and the first vice president must arrange for a new president to be elected within 50 days.

The current first vice president of Iran is Mohammad Mokhber.

Search-and-rescue teams, aided by several foreign governments, had been frantically searching for the helicopter after it went down in bad weather conditions in a mountainous area of the country late on May 19.

Raisi's helicopter was on its way to the city of Tabriz when it went down near the city of Jolfa in what state television said was a "hard landing," but several news reports quoted government sources as saying the helicopter crashed as it crossed a mountainous and forested area.

The Iranian government said the helicopter was one of three flying in a convoy, and the other two reportedly landed safely in Tabriz.

The ultraconservative Raisi and Amir-Abdollahian had been in Azerbaijan earlier on May 19 to inaugurate a dam with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who said on X that Azerbaijan was "profoundly troubled" by the news that Raisi's helicopter had gone down.

Raisi was elected president in 2021 and has since tightened many restrictions on Iranians through enforcement of morality laws and a bloody crackdown on anti-government protests spurred by the death of Mahsa Amini while in police custody for allegedly violating the code on head scarves.

He has also pushed hard in nuclear talks with world powers while also allowing the country to markedly increase its uranium enrichment program.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-raisi-helicopter-crash- deead/32954491.html

Copyright (c) 2024. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.