Ebrahim Raisi – COMMUNIST PARTY OF MAINE

_{^{President Ebrahim Raisi took office in 2021 (Reuters)}}

The helicopter crashed while crossing mountainous terrain, killing all passengers

_{Reposted from Middle East Eye}

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his foreign minister were killed in a helicopter crash in mountainous terrain and icy weather, Iran’s Mehr news agency said Monday, after search teams located the wreckage in East Azerbaijan province.

A senior Iranian official, who asked not to be named, confirmed to Reuters that all the passengers in the helicopter were killed in the crash.

The head of Iran’s Red Crescent, Pirhossein Kolivand, earlier told state television that “no sign” of life was detected among passengers of the helicopter that crashed on Sunday afternoon.

“Upon finding the helicopter, there was no sign of the helicopter passengers being alive as of yet,” state TV reported.

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, East Azerbaijan Governor Malek Rahmati and Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem, the representative of the Iranian supreme leader to the province, were in the same helicopter as Raisi.

An official told Reuters that the helicopter was found completely burned and all passengers were feared dead.

Rescue teams faced extreme weather and difficult terrain through the night to reach the wreckage in East Azerbaijan province. The area is covered in thick fog, with temperatures plummeting overnight and the heavy rain turning into snowfall.

Hours after midnight, a Turkish drone identified a source of heat suspected to be the helicopter’s wreckage and shared the coordinates with Iranian authorities who dispatched a large rescue team to the site.

Fears had been growing for Raisi, 63, after contact was lost with the aircraft carrying him back from a visit to the Azerbaijani border. Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi had said the helicopter “made a hard landing” in bad weather.

Iranian state media said images of the wreckage indicate that the helicopter had crashed into a mountain peak, although there was no official word yet on the cause of the crash.The president, a principlist and ideological ally of Khamenei, has been in office since 2021.

According to the Iranian constitution, in the event of the death, dismissal or resignation of the president, or an absence or illness lasting more than two months, the vice president, with the approval of Iran’s supreme leader, is to assume the president’s responsibilities.

A council consisting of the parliamentary speaker, the head of the judiciary and the vice president is then required to arrange the election of a new president within a maximum period of 50 days.

This is a developing story.

_{Middle East Eye is an independently funded digital news organisation covering stories from the Middle East and North Africa, as well as related content from beyond the region.}

_{^{Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi (standing-L) and Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel watch as senior officials from the two countries sign cooperation deals in the Palace of the Revolution in the Cuban capital Havana on June 15, 2023. (Photo: Press TV)}}

_{Originally published in People’s Dispatch on June 16, 2023}

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s visit to three Latin American countries — Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua — was aimed at fostering multipolarity and strengthening the anti-hegemonic and anti-imperialist struggle in world politics

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s five-day visit to three Latin American countries concluded on Thursday, June 15, in Cuba, where the countries signed six agreements related to increasing cooperation in foreign affairs and other areas.

The nature of the agreements and the choice of countries visited by the Iranian president reveal a renewed emphasis on building stronger South-South cooperation to undo the impact of unilateral sanctions imposed by the US. Raisi visited the region with a huge delegation which includes Iran’s foreign, defense, petroleum, and health ministers, among others.

Before Cuba, Raisi was in Nicaragua and Venezuela. All four countries are facing strict unilateral sanctions by the US, some for decades now, and have been affected by hegemonic and imperialist interventions in one form or the other in the recent past.

As Georgio Cafiero wrote in The New Arab, “Iran’s relationships with anti-hegemonic actors in Latin America should be analyzed within the context of South-South solidarity.” He noted that, “Iran and certain Latin American countries share a history of struggling with US sanctions and Washington’s interference in their internal affairs, they have much common cause in terms of pushing for a more multipolar and less West-centric world order.”

Raisi’s first stop was at Venezuela where he met President Nicolás Maduro. The two countries signed agreements with the objective of taking bilateral trade to USD 20 billion. The deals also included Iranians repairing the ailing oil refineries in Venezuela.

Resisting the conspiracies of imperialism

Raisi landed in Managua, Nicaragua, on Tuesday. He met President Daniel Ortega and addressed the country’s parliament. The countries signed three agreements related to economic cooperation and trade, technology, and judicial cooperation.

Raisi’s visit to Nicaragua was the first by any Iranian president since Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s trip in 2007. This has been the second high profile visit from Iran to Nicaragua this year. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian visited the country in February.

During his address to Nicaragua’s parliament on Wednesday, Raisi commended Nicaraguans for fighting against imperialism and winning. “You fought against the looting, the illegitimate demands and desires of imperialism and you triumphed. During all these you resisted against the conspiracies of imperialism and you triumphed,” Telesurtv reported him as saying.

The US had supported the right-wing Contra forces fighting the Sandinista government in Nicaragua by supplying them armaments and financial support. It has also imposed numerous sanctions on the country in the name of alleged threats to national security, human rights, and democracy.

Raisi said that “the domineering powers want to force their selfish interests on nations, and that’s why we should question why America and some Western countries, who pretend to care about human rights, freedom and democracy, don’t respect the real votes of the nations Palestine, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Latin America.”

He underlined that military occupation, coups, and sanctions are tools used by the US and other Western powers to control independent nations.

Ortega reiterated his country’s strong commitment to fight against imperialism and countries that “want to dominate the world.”

“The current order is changing and indicators show that the authority of domineering powers and the US is declining and the will of the nations in Latin America and West Asia is rising,” proclaimed Raisi.

Culmination in Cuba

During the last leg of his visit, Raisi landed in Havana on Thursday, where he was received at the Palace of the Revolution by his Cuban counterpart Miguel Díaz-Canel. He also met with former president Raúl Castro.

Cuba has been facing an oppressive US blockade and sanctions since the revolution in 1959. Various US agencies have tried to overthrow the socialist government in Cuba through attempted coups and military interventions.

Raisi reiterated his anti-imperialist claims in Cuba, saying that “our cooperation in the path to progress can create hope in independent nations and despair in imperialists.”

Iran has a long history of financial and technological cooperation with Cuba. It has been providing crucial financial support to Cuba for decades now and both countries together developed one of Cuba’s COVID-19 vaccines, the Soberana 2, in 2021.

Earlier this month, a Cuban delegation visited Iran and signed agreements in the areas of agriculture, banking, biotechnology, healthcare, sports and trade.

Díaz-Canel agreed with Raisi and noted that “Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Iran are among the countries that have heroically confronted sanctions, threats, blockades and interference by Yankee imperialism and its allies with a tenacious resistance.”

Castro praised Iranian resolve against imperialist assaults and noted that “the era of unilateralism is over, and we are moving towards multilateralism.”

_{Peoples Dispatch}