Just last Year now history forever

TEHRAN, Iran – The president of Iran is dead, government and non-government media in Iran reported Monday.

The foreign minister of the country also died when their helicopter crashed in heavy fog in Azerbaijan in Central Asia.

The pair were being sought in a massive search after their helicopter crashed late Sunday. There were nine people on board. The desperate search by Red Crescent units and the Iranian military located the crash site Monday.

Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, 63, and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, 60, were confirmed dead at the scene together with the other passengers and crew. The Governor of East Azerbaijan Province Malik Rahmeti, and Imam Ayatollah Ali Hashim of Tabriz province were also on board and died in the crash.

The head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society Pir-Hossein Kolivand confirmed there were no survivors.

“No trace of survivors has been seen after the discovery of the site of the crashed helicopter,” Kolivand told the Tasnim news agency Monday.

The helicopter is believed to have come down in a mountainous region in the province of East Azerbaijan. It was one of a convoy of three helicopters,

It was carrying a large delegation including the president and foreign minister. The group had taken part in the inauguration of a dam on the Iran-Azerbaijan border, which was also attended by Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev.

News of the helicopter crash caused a major ripple in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin calling a meeting at 10:00pm Sunday night to assess developments. The Iranian ambassador was asked to attend. “Mr. Putin, despite Sunday being a holiday in Russia, held a meeting at 10:00 PM with the presence of senior officials of the country’s defense and security apparatus and upon the invitation, I attended this meeting as the ambassador of the Islamic Republic”, Iran’s Ambassador to Russia, Kazem Jalali said Monday.

“Russia’s Minister of Defense, Andrey Belousov; Secretary of the National Security Council, Sergei Shoigu; Chief of the Joint Staff of the Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov; Minister of Civil Defense, Emergencies and Disaster Relief Alexander Korenkov; Special Assistant to the President, Igor Levitin and, one of the senior officials of the Federal Security Organization were present in the meeting,” Ambassador Jalali said.

The death of Iran’s president and foreign minister comes at a time of heightened tensions in the Middle East with Iranian proxies engaged in hostilities in Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen, and Iran itself having directly engaged with Israel just weeks ago after its embassy in Syria was bombed.