Vice president, foreign minister to attend Raisi's funeral

ANKARA

Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan will travel to Iran to attend a funeral ceremony following the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and other officials in a helicopter crash.

The delegation will be in Iran on May 22 to pay their respects, Türkiye's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

A helicopter carrying Raisi, the country’s foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, and other officials crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on May 19, sparking a massive rescue operation in a fog-shrouded forest as the public was urged to pray.

As the sun rose on May 20, Raisi and the others on board remained missing more than 12 hours after the likely crash, with Turkish drone footage suggesting the helicopter went down in the mountains. Rescuers rushed to the site.

Raisi was traveling in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. State TV said what it called a “hard landing” happened near Jolfa, a city on the border with the nation of Azerbaijan. Later, state TV put it farther east near the village of Uzi, but details remained contradictory.