Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi killed in helicopter crash - state TV

 Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi has been killed in a helicopter crash, state media confirm

1. Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was also killed in Sunday's crash, along with several others
   
   
   
2. The helicopter - one of three travelling in a convoy - crashed in heavy fog in the north of the country
3. Raisi was heading to the city of Tabriz, in the north-west of Iran, after returning from a dam opening ceremony on the Azerbaijan border
4. The president was a hardline cleric close to Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
5. An election for a new president is due to take place in the next 50 days

6. How are Iran's allies responding to the news?

   

   ReutersCopyright: Reuters

   • Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sends his condolences to his "dear friend" President Raisi. In a statement on X, formerly Twitter, he says he witnessed Raisi's "efforts to have peace" in Iran and the wider region

   • Pakistan's recently elected prime minister Shehbaz Sharif says Raisi and Foeign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian "were good friends of Pakistan"

   • Afghanistan's acting prime minister Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund says they share "the grief of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its people"
   • After Hamas, the leader of Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, released a statement, sending "sincere condolences and sympathy to the brotherly Iranian people"
   • Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad a Thani, of one of the few allies of Iran in the Gulf, Qatar, sends his condolences to the Iranian people

   • Iran's neighbour Iraq also expresses "solidarity with the brotherly Iranian people"
   • Thousands of miles away from Iran, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, writes on X that he is deeply saddened "to have to say goodbye to an exemplary person, an extraordinary leader of the world"

   • Iranian supreme leader announces interim president

     

     ReutersCopyright: Reuters

     We reported earlier that Mohammad Mokhber would become interim president of Iran - that has now been confirmed by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei on X.

     He says Mokhber will cooperate with the other branches - legislative and judiciary - in "facilitating" the election of a new president within the next 50 days.

   • THIS AND MORE UPDATES AT: Iran president helicopter crash live updates: President Ebrahim Raisi dies - state TV - BBC News

Iran declares five days of mourning for president

 Iran declares five days of mourning for president

IMAGE SOURCE,REUTERS

Michael Sheils McNamee

BBC News

Published
20 May 2024, 06:52 BST

Updated 1 hour ago

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has announced five days of mourning following the death of the country's President, Ebrahim Raisi.

Mr Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash in a mountainous area of north-western Iran, along with Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

State media confirmed they were killed after the helicopter they were travelling in came down on Sunday.

Ayatollah Khamenei said he offered his condolences "to the dear people of Iran".

Mr Raisi, 63, had been tipped as a potential successor to the supreme leader.

FULL ARTICLE AT: 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpwwql21747o

What next for Iran after President Raisi's death?

 Ebrahim Raisi stood close to the pinnacle of power in the Islamic Republic and was widely tipped to rise to its very top. A dramatic turn dealt him with a different hand. 

His death in a helicopter crash on Sunday has upended the growing speculation over who will eventually replace the 85-year-old Supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose own health has long been the focus of intense interest.

The tragic fate of Iran’s hardline president is not expected to disrupt the direction of Iranian policy or jolt the Islamic Republic in any consequential way.

But it will test a system where conservative hardliners now dominate all branches of power, both elected and unelected.

“The system will make a massive show of his death and stick to constitutional procedures to show functionality, while it seeks a new recruit who can maintain conservative unity and loyalty to Khamenei,” observes Dr Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at the Chatham House think tank.

Raisi's opponents will hail the exit of a former prosecutor accused of a decisive role in the mass execution of political prisoners in the 1980s which he denied; they will hope the end of his rule hastens the end of this regime.

For Iran’s ruling conservatives, the state funeral will be an occasion freighted with emotion; it will also be an opportunity to start sending their signals of continuity.

Another critical position which must be filled is the seat held by this middle-ranking cleric on the Assembly of Experts, the body empowered to choose the new supreme leader, when that far more consequential transition comes.

“Raisi was a potential successor because, like Khamenei himself when he became supreme leader, he was relatively young, very loyal, an ideologue committed to the system who has name recognition,” says Dr Vakil of this opaque process of selection, where a number of names are seen to be in the running including the Supreme Leader’s son Mojtaba Khamenei.

Even before Raisi’s death was officially confirmed, the Ayatollah conveyed in a post on X that “the Iranian people should not worry, there will be no disruption in the country’s affairs.”

The more immediate political challenge will be staging early presidential elections.

Power has been transferred to Vice-President Mohammad Mokhber; new elections must be held within 50 days.

This appeal to voters will come just months after March’s parliamentary elections revealed a record low turnout in a country which once prided itself on strong enthusiastic participation in this exercise.

Recent elections, including the contest in 2021 which brought Raisi to the presidency, were also marked by the systematic exclusion of moderate and pro-reform rivals by the oversight body.

“Early presidential elections could provide Khamenei and the upper echelons of the state with an opportunity to reverse that trajectory to give voters a way back into the political process,” says Mohammad Ali Shabani, editor of London-based news website Amwaj.media.

“But, unfortunately, so far we have seen no indications of the state being ready and willing to take such a step.”

FULL ARTICLE AT: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1dd99jgl09o

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