The helicopter of Iranian President Raisi suffered an accident

A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a "hard landing", the "Associated Press" reports ;, quoted by news.bg.

Raisi traveled to the Iranian province of East Azerbaijan. State television specified that the incident occurred near Jolfa, a town on the border with Azerbaijan, about 600 kilometers northwest of the Iranian capital, Tehran.

Traveling with Raisi were Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdolakhian, the governor of Iran's East Azerbaijan province and other officials. A local government official used the word "catastrophe" to describe the incident, but admitted to an Iranian newspaper that he had not yet reached the site.

Neither the state news agency IRNA nor state television provided information on Raisi's condition.

Subsequently, TASS reported that, according to an anonymous Iranian official, the lives of Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdolakhian were "in danger".

"We still have hope, but the information coming from the helicopter landing pad raises very serious concerns," he admitted.

Rescuers tried to reach the site, but were hampered by bad weather conditions. Heavy rain and fog with light wind reported.

Raisi was in Azerbaijan early this morning, where he attended the opening of a dam with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. This is the third dam that both countries are building on the Aras River.

The visit came despite cooled relations between Tehran and Baku, including over the 2023 attack on the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran and Azerbaijan's diplomatic relations with Israel, which Iran's Shiite theocracy considers its main enemy in the region.

Iran operates various helicopters domestically, but international sanctions make it difficult to obtain parts for them. Iran's Air Force largely predates the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Raisi, 63, previously headed the country's judiciary. He is considered a protégé of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and some analysts have suggested he could replace the 85-year-old leader after his death or retirement.

Raisi won Iran's 2021 presidential election, which saw the lowest voter turnout in the Islamic republic's history. He was sanctioned by the US in part because of his involvement in the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 at the end of the bloody Iran-Iraq war.