Tehran: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and the country’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian died in a helicopter crash, the state media confirmed on Monday.
Iran’s Mehr news agency confirmed the deaths, reporting that “all passengers of the helicopter carrying the Iranian president and foreign minister were martyred”.
“The president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ebrahim Raisi, had an accident while serving and performing his duty for the people of Iran and was martyred,” Mehr said as other media outlets also reported the news.
State TV reported that images from the site showed the aircraft slammed into a mountain peak, although there was no official word on the cause of the crash.
Rescue teams fought blizzards and difficult terrain through the night to reach the wreckage in East Azerbaijan province in the early hours of Monday.
“We can see the wreckage and the situation does not look good,” the head of Iran’s Red Crescent, Pirhossein Kolivand, told state TV.
“With the discovery of the crash site, no signs of life have been detected among the helicopter’s passengers.”
A senior Iranian official, requesting anonymity following the sensitivity of the development, told a foreign news agency: “President Raisi, the foreign minister and all the passengers in the helicopter were killed in the crash.”
Raisi, 63, was elected president in 2021, and since taking office has ordered a tightening of morality laws, overseen a bloody crackdown on anti-government protests and pushed hard in nuclear talks with world powers.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who holds ultimate power with a final say on foreign policy and Iran’s nuclear programme, sought to reassure Iranians, saying there would be no disruption to state affairs.