Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has on Monday been confirmed dead after a Helicopter crash.
State TV gave no immediate cause for the crash in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province.
With Raisi were Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province, and other officials and bodyguards, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.
European Union foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell in a brief statement on Monday offered condolences for the deaths of Iran’s president and foreign minister and “other Iranian officials involved in the tragic helicopter crash.”
“The EU expresses its sympathies to the families of all the victims and to the Iranian citizens affected,” the statement said.
Raisi was the second-most powerful person in the Islamic Republic after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber is now acting president, and top negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani has been appointed acting foreign minister.
The president’s death comes at a fraught moment in the Middle East, just weeks after Iran launched a drone and missile attack on Israel in response to a deadly strike on its diplomatic compound in Damascus.
Hardliner Raisi became president in a historically uncompetitive election in 2021. He has overseen intensified repression of dissent in a nation convulsed by youth-led protests against clerical rule.
All cultural and arts activities in Iran will be suspended for seven days following the death of President Ebrahim Raisi, the Ministry of Culture announced on Monday.
Raisi died in a helicopter crash at age 63.
The country’s foreign minister and seven others were also killed after the crash in a remote, mountainous area of Iran’s northwest.
