The lives of Ebrahim Raisi and Hossein Amirabdollahian, his foreign minister, were “at risk”, an Iranian official said during a large search and rescue mission.

Ahmad Vahidi, the Iranian interior minister, blamed the crash, which came just a month after Tehran launched an unprecedented missile and drone attack against Israel, on poor weather conditions. State media described the incident as an “accident”.

The chief of staff of the Iranian military ordered the entire army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to be put to use. More than 65 search and rescue teams, medical crews and drones were deployed to the area near Jolfa, a city on the border with Azerbaijan, some 375 miles north-west of Tehran.

But the rescue effort was hampered by thick fog and the arduous terrain. Searches using helicopters had to be called off when darkness fell.

“It is dark and it has started raining, but the search continues. Rescue teams have reached the area… however, the rain has created mud, making the search difficult,” a reporter told state TV.

The national broadcaster stopped its regular programming to show prayers being held for Mr Raisi across the country, while live coverage of rescue teams combing the mountains played in a corner of the screen.

The helicopter the officials were travelling in was a Bell 212 acquired by the Iranian military in the 1970s, during the last years of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s reign.

Iran operates a variety of helicopters – most dating to before the 1979 Islamic Revolution – and international sanctions have made it difficult to obtain spare parts for them.

Mr Raisi had been in Azerbaijan early on Sunday to inaugurate a dam with his counterpart Ilham Aliyev. After visiting one site, the president and his entourage took off in a convoy of three helicopters to inaugurate another when contact was lost with his aircraft.

“At around 1pm, the president left Tabriz to inaugurate two projects but the helicopter lost contact shortly after leaving,” said Mohsen Mansouri, the head of the search and rescue teams.

Also on board the missing helicopter were the province’s Friday Prayer leader and the local governor.

“Three helicopters left Tabriz but, half an hour later, two of them lost contact with the one carrying the president,” the official said. “The army, IRGC, police, Red Crescent and everyone are looking for the helicopter. Progress is slow due to the weather conditions and the challenging terrain of the region.”

The Iranian border forces said late on Sunday that they were close to the crash site, although the helicopter had still not been located.

An Iranian official has told state TV that brief contact was made with one of the passengers and one of the crew members after it crashed. However, Hossein Hatami, the representative of Kalibar, where the helicopter crashed, said that no such contact had been established with the passengers. “There is no information about any of the passengers inside the helicopter, and access to their mobile antennas has not been possible,” he said.

Iran’s cabinet, chaired by first vice-president Mohammad Mokhber, held an emergency meeting on Sunday night, after which the health minister and executive vice-president were instructed to travel to the area.

The crash comes at a time of widespread dissent within Iran. The country’s clerical rulers face international pressure over Tehran’s support for Russia in its war against Ukraine, as well as its nuclear programme. Tehran has recently begun enriching uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian supreme leader who holds ultimate power in the country, sought to reassure citizens, saying there would be no disruption to state affairs.

“The people of Iran should not worry, there will be no disruption in the work of the country,” he said. “We hope that Almighty God will return the respected and honourable president and his companions to the arms of the nation. Everyone should pray for the health of this group of servants.”

The country’s presidential spokesman said Iran was going through a “difficult” situation.

“We are experiencing difficult and complicated conditions. It is the right of the people and the media to be aware of the latest news about the president’s helicopter accident,” Ali Bahadori Jahromi said. “In these moments, patience, prayer and trust in relief groups are the way forward.”

Mr Raisi, a hardliner who formerly led Iran’s judiciary, quickly ascended the ranks of the Islamic Republic, and is now considered a potential successor to the supreme leader.

He won Iran’s closely stage-managed 2021 presidential election, a vote marked by the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history.

His victory brought all branches of power under the control of hardliners, after eight years in which the presidency had been held by Hassan Rouhani, a pragmatist who entered into a nuclear deal with Washington.

However, Mr Raisi’s standing may have been dented by widespread protests against clerical rule and a failure to turn around Iran’s economy, hamstrung by Western sanctions.

He was sanctioned by the US in part over his involvement in the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988, when he served as a member of the “death chamber” that decided their fates.

Raisi presided over crackdown on protests

Under Mr Raisi, Iran has continued arming proxy groups in the Middle East, such as Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

He also presided over the crackdown on several nationwide protest movements, the most recent being those that swept the country after the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman detained for improperly wearing a headscarf.

More than 500 people were killed and 22,000 detained in the months-long crackdown by the morality police and security services.

Mr Abdollahian, 60, has been Iran’s foreign minister since 2021 and is known for his support of the Iran-backed “Axis of Resistance” against Israel and the US.

According to the constitution, the vice-president would assume power after the death of a president, with elections to follow.

Russia, now one of Iran’s closest allies, offered its help in the search for Mr Raisi. “Russia is ready to extend all necessary help in the search for the missing helicopter and the investigation of the reasons for the incident,” Maria Zakharova, the foreign ministry spokesman, said.

The US State Department said it was closely following the incident, and Joe Biden, the US president, had been briefed on the situation.

Ilham Aliyev, the Azeri president who had been with Mr Raisi on Sunday morning, said: “Today, after bidding a friendly farewell to the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, we were profoundly troubled by the news of a helicopter carrying the top delegation crash-landing in Iran.”

Source: The Telegraph

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Much like its ideological counterparts at HispanTV (Iranian-owned) and Actualidad RT (Russian-owned), Telesur wraps its incitement into a sophisticated and slick twenty-four-hour news platform through its website, broadcasts, and social media presence. Though it is difficult to gauge its influence, numbers suggest that Telesur’s message is impactful. Telesur has two million followers on its Spanish X account, 117,500 on its English X account, and more than half a million on Instagram. Its YouTube account has over 1.7 million subscribers, with 100,000 new subscribers and almost 7.4 million video views since October 7 (It also posts its videos on the Daily Motion).

The network traditionally pushes out conspiracy theories, fake news, “whataboutism,” and disinformation that serve a common agenda: demonize the West, undermine the credibility of Western news outlets, paint Western leaders as hypocrites, and promote a narrative of global resistance against America and its allies. Aware that a worldwide audience of half a billion Spanish speakers—including almost sixty million in the U.S.—could be receptive to its anti-imperialist spin, Telesur began broadcasts in 2005. Since then, Telesur has routinely packaged its allies’ imperialism as resistance, their terrorism as anti-terrorism, and their authoritarianism as democracy. It has platformed conspiracy theorists, like Thierry Meyssan, the French author of the 2002 screed, 9/11: The Big Lie, the earliest 9/11 “truther” libel, accusing the United States of orchestrating the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers. It has also peddled anti-Semitic tropes, insinuating that “the Zionist Lobby” manipulates and controls U.S. media, falsely accusing Israelis of trafficking children and Israel of supporting ISIS.

Telesur news coverage since October 7, then, is hardly surprising. However, it has gained a new obsessive intensity, broadcasting a daily media diet of hatred. In its breaking news report on Hamas’ October 7 massacre, Telesur news anchor described that morning’s atrocities as an operation by the Hamas “resistance movement” in response to “continued Israeli aggressions.” The broadcast defined the event as “a new stage in the Palestinian struggle against Zionist occupation.” It then showed its viewers a news segment produced by their Syria-based correspondent, which made no mention of atrocities or Israeli civilian casualties. Telesur’s initial denial and distortion set the stage for the ensuing news coverage, which amplified a pro-Hamas narrative.

For example, after Western media corrected their reporting about Palestinian claims that on October 17, Israel bombarded the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, killing 500 people, Telesur doubled down, relying on a report from Al Jazeera.

Opinion pieces have been even more inflammatory than news segments, consistently espousing bigotry. Telesur commentators have routinely compared Israel to Nazism, denying and, at the same time, justifying the October 7 massacre. On October 9, as the gory details of Hamas atrocities were emerging, a blog entry celebrated them as a “very special page” in the history of the great battles for freedom. On October 15, TeleSur’s special envoy in Lebanon wrote a column entitled “Agony of a macabre implant,” where, after defining Israel as a European colonial-settler “implant” and accusing it of committing genocide, he proceeded to dismiss Hamas’ atrocities, lamenting a “Western media narrative, which focuses on Hamas, and not on the unprecedented fact of the united action of all Palestinian resistance organizations.”

After denial comes the systematic demonization of Israel through the casual recourse to antisemitic tropes, with Israel described as a worthy successor of Nazi Germany. 

On October 16, another blog post accused Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, of pursuing a final solution in Gaza and pleaded that the international community should not allow “the Jews to continue murdering the Palestinians in their land.”

On October 21, another commentator evoked the old Antisemitic canard of Jewish control of world media to denounce what its author considered a global media coverup of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Those controlling the “spiral of silence” in the mainstream media were, according to the author, “the transnational Jewish lobby.” On November 3, the theme of a conspiracy of silence orchestrated by Israel, the United States, and “the hegemonic media” recurred in another column. Its goal, thundered the author, was to enable Israel to turn Gaza into “a Palestinian cemetery.” The next day, Telesur published another blog post accusing Israel, whose creation the author described as the machinations of the “international Zionist oligarchy,” of committing “the third largest genocide in history.” And on November 7, Chilean columnist Pablo Jofre Leal (an author frequently posting on HispanTV as well and a government advisor to Gabriel Boric’s ministry of health in Chile) attacked what he labeled “the Ukraine-Israel national socialist-national Zionist alliance,” called the Hamas massacres a “legitimate action of the Palestinian resistance,” and described Israel’s response as a modern version of 1942 Wannsee Conference, the Nazi gathering that finetuned Hitler’s final solution.

Telesur, whose broadcast includes an English language channel and a Washington, DC, based correspondent, continues to spread misinformation and incitement through the ether, the internet, and social media. Washington, whose battle against disinformation has taken multiple steps to curb Russia’s and Iran’s misinformation channels in the anglosphere, seems mostly oblivious to Spanish language propaganda by Maduro’s Venezuela, despite its ability to shape public opinion in Latin America.

Downplaying the importance of the battle of ideas in Spanish will have long-term implications, especially in Latin America, where the Maduro regime continues to leverage a long history of anti-Americanism to its own advantage. Commenting on Russia’s Spanish language propaganda in Latin America, Southern Command’s General Laura J. Richardson recently said, “In 2020, Russia Today (RT)’s Spanish-language media outlets more than doubled their social media followers from 7 million to over 18 million. These disinformation campaigns are just one part of Russia’s broader efforts to influence national elections throughout the region this year.”

With much of the region’s political winds blowing leftward, the pro-Iran and pro-Hamas echo chamber of the Maduro regime should draw as much urgent attention from the White House and State Department as Russia’s disinformation does.

If Washington does wake up to the threat, it can take three initial steps to address it. First, it can slap sanctions against Telesur, much like it did against Iran’s Press TV, for its key role in supporting censorship and televising forced confessions, and Russian state-owned propaganda outlets for their role in Russia’s disinformation campaign. Second, it can lobby the telecom private sector to have Telesur de-platformed. Third, it can appeal to U.S.-based social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, X, the Daily Motion, and YouTube, to ensure they restrict Venezuelan regime disinformation.

The pro-Hamas, pro-Iran disinformation that Telesur spews daily is inflammatory, inciteful, and rife with antisemitic hatred. Telesur should be treated as a foreign state influence operation of the Maduro dictatorship for its continued rhetoric inciting hatred against Jews and driving global antisemitism. It should not be given free rein. Washington has sanctioned similar media disinformation campaigns before. Telesur should not be an exception.

Source: FDD

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President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi Thursday on the sidelines of the 16th Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) summit in Uzbekistan’s Tashkent.

The Palestine-Israel conflict situation in Gaza dominated the talks, according to Turkish sources. Presidency’s Communications Directorate said in a statement that two leaders discussed the humanitarian crisis stemming from Israeli attacks on Gaza, steps to be taken for the solution, Turkish-Iranian relations and regional issues.

Erdoğan highlighted that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) extraordinary summit set to be held in Saudi Arabia over the weekend should focus on a fair solution, noting that an end to Israeli attacks would serve regional and global peace.

Erdoğan told Raisi that Türkiye was ready to contribute to the solution through guarantorship. He also stressed that the Islamic world should adopt a common stance to exert pressure on Israel for a solution to the conflict, according to the Directorate’s statement.

Iran on Thursday rejected a G-7 statement that called on Tehran to stop supporting Hamas and taking actions that “destabilize” the Middle East. Tehran’s comment came a day after foreign ministers from the G-7 group of advanced economies, meeting in Tokyo, expressed support for “humanitarian pauses and corridors” in the Palestine-Israel conflict.

The G-7 also called on Iran to “refrain from providing support for Hamas and taking further actions that destabilize the Middle East, including support for Lebanese Hezbollah and other non-state actors.”

On Thursday, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanani “strongly condemned” the statement by the group, which includes the United States, Britain, Germany, Canada, Italy, France and Japan. He said Iran has engaged in “non-stop efforts to stop military attacks of the Zionist aggressor regime (Israel) on the defenseless citizens” in Gaza.

“What was expected from the meeting of the Group of seven foreign ministers in Tokyo was to fulfill their international responsibility, including condemning the acts of the Zionist regime that violate human rights and international law in Gaza,”he added.

Source: Daily Sabah

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The volume of Iran and Turkey’s trade has significantly surged, the chairman of Iran-Turkey Joint Chamber of Commerce said, adding that Ankara’s non-cooperation with US in implementing sanctions imposed against Tehran is a promising for boosting bilateral trade ties.

Speaking in an interview with IRNA on Saturday, Mehrdad Sa’adat pointed to the growing trend of trade between Iran and Turkey and stated, “We should wait for the result of the upcoming presidential election in Turkey.”

After holding this important political event in Turkey, “We can continue intensive consultations in the field of expanding bilateral trade exchanges.”

Last month, Turkey announced it would not cooperate with the United States and other countries in implementing sanctions against Iran, which is promising news for the development of trade ties between Tehran and Ankara, Sa’adat underlined.

The Iran-Turkey Joint Chamber of Commerce in cooperation with the Trade Promotion Organization of Iran (TPOI) has taken effective measures in this regard, he said, adding that continuation of talks to finalize the Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) between the two countries is one of the issues that should be taken into consideration after the presidential election in Turkey.

He also pointed to the dispatch of more commercial envoys to neighboring Turkey and added that a proposal has been proposed by the Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (ICCIMA) to send a commercial envoy to Istanbul, which is regarded as the main trade and economic center of Turkey.

With such measures, it is hoped that the country would take the maximum advantage of import and export capacities in this neighboring state, the chairman of the Iran-Turkey Chamber of Commerce added.

Source: Tasnim News

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The value of trade between Iran and Turkey stood at $1.379 billion during the first quarter of 2023, down 14 percent from $1.619 billion in the first three months of 2022, according to the figures recently released by the Turkish Statistical Institute.

Based on the mentioned data, Turkey’s export to Iran rose two percent to $702 million in the three-month period of this year, from $682 million in the same time span of the previous year.

Iran’s three-month export to Turkey fell 27 percent to $677 million from $932 million.

Based on the data previously released by the Turkish Statistical Institute, the value of Iran’s exports to neighboring Turkey increased by 19 percent to reach $3.35 billion in 2022.

Turkey had imported over $2.82 billion worth of commodities from the Islamic Republic in 2021.

Based on the mentioned data, Iran’s imports from the country also marked an 11-percent rise to hit $3.07 billion in the past year, in comparison with 2021, when the figure was $2.77 billion.

According to the Turkish Statistical Institute, the trade between the two countries has registered a 15-percent rise in 2022.

The value of trade between the two neighbors reached $6.42 billion in 2022, while the figure stood at $5.59 billion in the preceding year.

Iran’s trade balance with Turkey has been $280 million positive in favor of Iran in the past year.

As announced by an official with Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPO), the value of Iran’s export to Turkey increased by 23 percent in the past Iranian calendar year 1401 (ended on March 20).

Farzad Piltan, the director-general of TPO’s Office of West Asian Countries, said that based on the data released by the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA), Iran exported commodities worth $7.45 billion to its neighbor in 1401, while the figure was $6.079 in 1400.

Saying that Turkey was Iran’s third top export destination in the past year, the official named natural gas, aluminum, urea, polyethylene, copper cathode and cathode parts, copper wires, iron and steel ingots, and polyethylene as the major products Iran exported to Turkey in the previous year.

Piltan further announced that Iran’s import from Turkey also rose 15 percent to about $6 billion in 1401, from $5.2 billion in 1400.

Stating that Turkey was the third source of import for Iran in the previous year, the official named sunflower seed oil, road tractors, corn, bananas, generators, barley, soybeans, synthetic fibers, crude soybean oil, and solid acrylic polymers as the main items Iran imported from its neighbor in 1401.

In last July, Iran and Turkey discussed ways of expanding economic relations along with political ties at the Turkish-Iranian High-Level Cooperation Council in Tehran.

During the meeting, which was co-chaired by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the two sides negotiated the extension of the gas export contract between the two sides for the next 25 years.

In the meeting, President Raisi noted that the Islamic Republic of Iran is determined to expand economic relations with neighboring countries.

The president also evaluated Tehran-Ankara ties as positive and progressive, saying that the two countries should pursue appropriate policies to move towards increasing their annual trade exchanges to $30 billion.

On the sidelines of the mentioned meeting, Iranian Energy Minister Ali-Akbar Mehrabian also held talks with Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Fatih Dönmez in which the two sides exchanged views on cooperation in energy fields.

Later on, Head of Turkey’s Small and Medium Enterprises Development Organization (KOSGEB) Hasan Basri Kurt met with Head of Iran Small Industries and Industrial Parks Organization (ISIPO) Ali Rasoulian to discuss ways of expanding cooperation between the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) of the two countries.

In this meeting Rasoulian referred to the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the two countries on cooperation between SMEs, saying: “President Raisi has emphasized setting up joint industrial parks in the country’s special economic zones, considering the good infrastructure for setting up such parks in the free and special economic zones and the active presence of economic enterprises in these areas.”

Source: Tehran Times

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Kassym-Jomart Tokayev continues to receive congratulations from the heads of foreign states and heads of international organizations on the occasion of the Nauryz holiday, the press service of Akorda reports.

The President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev in his congratulatory telegram noted that along with its ancient history, Nauryz in its philosophical content reflects the common customs and values ​​of the Kazakh and Uzbek peoples.

“I am deeply convinced that our mutual cooperation based on good neighborly relations will expand in accordance with the common interests of our peoples, and further intensification of high-level mutual ties will help strengthen our strategic partnership and allied relations,” the telegram says.

The President of Kyrgyzstan Sadyr Japarov wished the fraternal Kazakh people good and happiness.

“I believe that this year will be a year of development for our countries. May the multifaceted relations between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, based on common spiritual values ​​and friendship, as well as strategic partnership, consistently develop thanks to our common efforts,” Sadyr Japarov wrote in a congratulatory message.  

President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon wished Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev good health and new successes, and peace, prosperity and prosperity to the fraternal people of Kazakhstan.

“I am sure that our countries, with new hopes and aspirations, following the unfading values ​​of Navruz, will continue to expand and develop their friendly relations and mutually beneficial cooperation within the framework of a strategic partnership,” the leader of Tajikistan said.  

The congratulatory message of the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, emphasizes that Nauryz is a valuable contribution of our peoples to world culture.  

“This holiday symbolizes mutual understanding, friendship and solidarity. I believe that, by the will of our peoples, we will continue our joint efforts to preserve and strengthen Azerbaijani-Kazakh friendly relations and partnership,” the telegram says.  

President of Turkmenistan Serdar Berdimuhamedov, President of Iran Ibrahim Raisi, President of Georgia Salome Zurabishvili and Secretary General of TURKSOY Sultan Raev also sent their congratulations.

Source: informburo

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