Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

CNN International: Iran: President Raise Confirmed Dead After Helicopter Crash. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired May 20, 2024 - 04:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[04:00:00]

[Speaker 10]

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN HOST: Well, hello, and welcome to our viewers joining us from around the world. I'm Becky Anderson. It is Monday, May the 20th, 9 a.m. here in London. It is 11.30 a.m. in Iran, where the government is expressing condolences over the deaths of President Ebrahim Raisi, the country's president, and the foreign minister, and seven others in a helicopter crash. Rescuers are transferring the bodies of those killed from the crash site in Iran's east Azerbaijan province to the city of Tabriz. Iranian officials say the helicopter ran into trouble amid heavy fog on Sunday afternoon.

At the time of the crash, there were low-hanging clouds and cool temperatures across the region with fog settling in as the sun set. Well, images of the crash site show the remote mountainous area where the aircraft went down. The president and other officials have been attending an inauguration ceremony of a new dam near the border with Azerbaijan.

Ivan Watson following reaction from around the region. First, let's bring in Paula Hancocks with more from Abu Dhabi, and we are just hearing from the spokesperson of the Iranian Guardians Council with a response to this news. Paula, what's being said?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Becky, the Guardian Council has said that they want to share their condolences, saying it is a great loss for the Iranian nation, also saying that what has happened is a tragedy. But really saying what we have been hearing consistently from Iranian officials, that this will not be disruptive.

Now, it's something that we heard earlier from the supreme leader himself. This was before the confirmation that the president, the foreign minister and seven others had been killed in that helicopter crash, saying that there would be no disruption. It really is a message of stability that the Iranian government wants to project at this point.

We also heard from the Iranian government expressing their condolences over the death, saying that President Raisi was hardworking and tireless.

Now, we know that this all happened around about 1:30 in the afternoon on Sunday. That is when we received the first reports that there was a missing helicopter. Now, the president and foreign minister were in a convoy of three helicopters. Two of the helicopters landed safely, but theirs did not.

What we understand now, it did crash into the side of a mountain in an area which is really very inhospitable. It is a very difficult terrain, which has been evidenced by the fact that it took rescue teams some 16 hours to be able to find the area where this helicopter went down.

Now, we also know of the conditions, as you mentioned there during this helicopter flight, that there was low hanging cloud, that fog made visibility very challenging. In fact, as soon as rescue teams started their operations, they said that they were unable to put a helicopter up to try and find the location of the crash because it was simply too dangerous. So, of course, that will be raising some questions as to why the president was in the air at this point as well.

There has been an urgent cabinet meeting in Iran. We saw the seat where President Raisi usually sits, had a black sash across it in mourning. We're seeing television presenters wearing black. There are in between all the news bulletins that we are seeing Islamic prayers being broadcast.

We've also heard that there will be timing and details of the mourning procession announced in the very near future. There really is a sense of the mourning already beginning in Iran -- Becky.

ANDERSON: Paula, thank you. Let me bring in Ivan Watson. You were for many years the Turkish bureau chief, the bureau chief in Turkey for CNN. You're very familiar with not just the region where this chopper went down, but with the internal sort of machinations of Iranian politics.

[04:05:00]

And Ivan, as Paula pointed out, the supreme leader, the guardian council, very quick to underscore there will be no disruption to what goes on in Iran as a result of the death of the president and the foreign minister.

And there will be an enormous amount of work going on behind the scenes to ensure that there is no disruption and some stability. What happens next?

IVAN WATSON, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I mean, there is a transition that Paula has been mentioning, but part of this is because Iran has been through a bumpy number of years. It's been facing economic challenges, environmental issues with reports of water shortages. It's had an uprising in the last two years that was violently crushed with reports of hundreds of protesters being killed, not to mention arrests and executions as well.

And the ongoing tension with Iran's archenemy, Israel, which resulted in exchange of direct fire between these two governments just last month, breaking precedent in the tense and oftentimes deadly history between those two regional rivals.

So the Iranian government has come out with the statement from the supreme leader on Sunday, Ali Khamenei, saying, hey, we're going to move forward as I want you to pray for the missing president. That was before confirmation that all the passengers aboard the helicopter had died.

And now with statements that, yes, there will be continuity, there will not be instability, that there is a system in place to set up for now the vice president taking over and then for a transition period to another round of elections.

The regional reaction, Becky, has been of an outpouring of condolences for Ibrahim Raisi, for Iran's foreign minister, as well as the rest of their entourage, particularly from Iran's allies. So you have the Houthis of Yemen who've come out with condolences. You have the Palestinian militant group Hamas, of course, entrenched in this grinding and very deadly conflict in Gaza that has come out and expressed sympathies and condolence.

And Hezbollah in Lebanon, which is currently engaged in ongoing battles across the border with Israel, has come out with its own statement calling Raisi, his eminence, the martyr president, calling him a big brother, a strong supporter and a staunch defender of Hezbollah's issues and the nation's issues, most notably Jerusalem and Palestine, and a protector of the resistance movements. And the prime minister of Lebanon has come out declaring three days of mourning in that country as well.

The Russian foreign ministry minister expressing mourning. And then Iran's neighbor to the West, Turkey, which, you know, isn't always lockstep in allegiance, in alliance with Iran, has expressed sympathy and even lent a drone for that frantic recovery research, sorry, rescue effort, when for some 16 hours the Iranian government could not find their own president after his helicopter went down in this crash.

ANDERSON: Good to have you, Ivan. Thank you.

Well, let's pick up where Ivan left off with Ali Vaez, who is the International Crisis Group's Iran Project Director joining us via Skype from Doha, Qatar today.

Ali, good to have you. Let's just pick up there. You heard the response regionally from a number of key players, as it were, to the news of the death of the Iranian president and indeed the foreign minister. What do you make of what we are hearing?

ALI VAEZ, IRAN PROJECT DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP: It's great to be with you again, Becky. Look, the reality is that the sudden demise of an Iranian president is obviously a shock to the region that is experiencing an extreme level of turmoil and puts everybody in a position that they have to quickly react and figure out what this means.

But the reality is, you know, the presidential transitions in Iran are often either overestimated or downplayed. Overestimated because there is a lot of value attached to the tone that the president sets for the country, the fact that his team carry out the system's instructions in terms of foreign or regional policy. But also downplayed because at the end of the day, he's not the ultimate decision maker. And especially President Raisi, I think, went further than most of his predecessors in disempowering the executive branch in Iran.

[04:10:00]

ANDERSON: Just remind us what does happen next?

VAEZ: Well, Vice President Mokhber, who is very close to the Supreme Leader and the Revolutionary Guards, will take over as of today and is in charge, along with the head of the judiciary and the parliament, to organize an election in the next 50 days. That means candidates would have to announce that they're running. Disqualification or vetting process would have to happen through the Guardian Council, which is in charge of this.

An election has to be organized, which at this moment that the regime is suffering from a crisis of legitimacy at home, it's a very risky thing for them to do. Mass mobilization, by definition, is going to be quite a concern for the Islamic Republic at this moment in time. And then once a president is in office, he has to put together his cabinet and start running the country.

All of that means in the next few weeks, Iran will be very much internally focused.

ANDERSON: The national security file and indeed the ideological direction of the Islamic Republic not set by the president. So the impact for decision makers in Washington, in Tel Aviv, in Jerusalem, in London and capitals around the world will not be as significant, perhaps, as surely the passing of, for example, the Supreme Leader, who, of course, is 85 years old. There is a succession behind the scenes at present as to, you know, what happens next with regard to that very important leadership position.

Ali, what do we know?

VAEZ: Well, this is exactly, Vicky, right, you're putting your finger on the most important uncertainty that Raisi's passing is going to create. Now, I'm not privy to the conversations, and I think most people who speculate are not, of whether Raisi was indeed the candidate that the system was grooming for succeeding the 85-year-old Supreme Leader. But that was a widespread belief.

And his sudden removal from the stage basically creates a vacuum and creates a jockeying for that position. And in 1981, in fact, the current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, became president when his predecessor was killed in a bombing in the capital city of Tehran. And so, you know, it is quite possible that the system would want someone with the profile of Raisi, who was very loyal to the Supreme Leader and extremely subservient to him as well, to be elected so that he could potentially also be the successor to the current Supreme Leader.

But it's also possible that the successor would not be a cleric. And in that case, the system would have elsewhere for a successor. But at the end of the day, you know, it's not difficult to find people in that system who fit that profile of basically being a yes man to the current Supreme Leader so that he can make sure that he could preserve his legacy and his vision for the future of the Islamic Republic.

ANDERSON: And of course, his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, is certainly one of the names thrown in as a potential for that succession going forward. Although a hereditary succession, of course, was at the heart of Khamenei's problem. One of the problems that he had with the rule of the Shah beforehand.

Ali, I think it's important then that while we have underscored how the demise, the death of the president and foreign minister will not be hugely impactful on national security, on foreign policy, and consequently, Iran's influence on the region and around the world, where do things stand at present? Obviously, incredibly complex, complicated and worrying period of instability in the region. And as yet, no clear direction with regard to the Iran nuclear file.

So where do things stand?

VAEZ: Look, Becky, last week, we know that Iran and the U.S. had indirect conversations in Oman.

[04:15:00]

The man who was leading those negotiations was not Foreign Minister Amir Abdollahian, who was killed in this crash. It was his deputy, Ali Bagheri Kani, who is also widely seen as a potential successor to Foreign Minister Amir Abdollahian.

So, again, I think those conversations are likely to continue because both Iran and the United States do not want further escalation, do not want the nuclear issue to lead to a military conflict. And so they would both try to figure out a way of kicking the can down the road until they know who the next U.S. president is.

The same, to a certain extent, applies to what's happening in the region. But there is more uncertainty there. And there are actors over which Iran and the U.S. do not have full control.

For instance, you might have the Houthis, who are continuing to conduct attacks in the Red Sea, target a commercial or a warship that would result in a high number of casualties. Or you might have a situation in which tensions between Israel and Hezbollah that are growing by the day, again, get out of control. And in those circumstances, the bets are off.

I think the Iranian political leadership, at a time that it believes, because of the vacuum that has been created at the top of the executive branch, feels vulnerable, does not want to signal weakness, and is likely to react to any testing of its boundaries in a much more aggressive and assertive way. So we might see a repeat of what happened last month between Iran and Israel, but in a much more perilous manner, if tensions come to a head in the next few weeks. ANDERSON: It's good to have you, Ali. You were speaking to the Yemen group, the Houthis, Iran-backed, you know, as far as many, many people are concerned. We have had a response from the Houthis, from Hamas and from Hezbollah as well.

On the Houthi side: Our deepest condolences to the Iranian people and the Iranian leadership. The Iranian people will continue to have leaders loyal to their people, Al-Houthi said.

From Hezbollah, and we do know that Lebanon has announced three days of mourning, Hezbollah specifically underscoring what we have heard from the supreme leader there, from our Houthi and indeed from Hamas, that this, the passing of the president and the foreign minister, according to the supreme leader and others now very much sort of supporting that narrative, that there will be no disruption to the workings of Iran as a result of these two deaths. We will see.

Ali Vaez, thank you.

Much more ahead this hour on our breaking news out of Iran, the death of President Ebrahim Raisi and the country's foreign minister in a helicopter crash.

And later, a look at what's expected this week in Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial. His former attorney will be back on the stand today.

[04:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANDERSON: Well, back to our breaking news story this hour. Iranian state media has confirmed that President Ebrahim Raisi and the country's foreign minister have died in a helicopter crash. Seven other people were on board. Search and rescue teams say they found no survivors at this crash site. And the bodies of those killed in the crash, they say will be transported to the city of Tabriz. The aircraft came down early Sunday afternoon as it was flying over Iran's East Azerbaijan province.

Well joining me now is CNN senior White House reporter Kevin Liptack. He's been traveling with U.S. President Joe Biden in Michigan. And the delegation there will have been aware since local time Sunday afternoon that of the reports of what was described as a heavy landing for the helicopter in which the president and foreign minister were traveling.

It was only early Monday morning in the cold light of day, as it were, that the deaths of those two men were confirmed. And what, if anything, have we heard from the president or his administration?

KEVEN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, we haven't heard much, and I think that's by design. The president certainly wanting to choose his words very carefully. And it was interesting over the course of the last day, as U.S. officials were working to ascertain details of what exactly happened, they weren't only just looking for what was happening on the ground at that mountaintop. They were also looking to see how the Iranians were describing what happened, seeing if there was any indication that the Iranians could potentially be looking for a pretext to blame this on the United States or on the West, which is something, of course, that Iran has done in the past.

And I think as President Biden decides how he wants to respond going forward, that will be at the forefront of his mind, trying to provide assurances that the U.S., of course, wasn't behind this, but also looking to sort of deny the Iranian leadership any sort of entry into that line of thinking. And of course, President Biden's overarching goal here is to sort of contain this volatility in what is already certainly a very uncertain part of the world, at a very uncertain moment.

Of course, President Biden is dealing with the war in Israel and in Gaza, and he is at the sort of precipice moment as he is working to achieve a number of things, including a ceasefire paired with the release of hostages.

[04:25:02]

But also this broader vision that he's trying to orchestrate between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia on a defense pact, talking about bringing Israel in as well, normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia, all with the eye to creating this bulwark against Iran in the region.

And that has been sort of his strategy toward Iran ever since those indirect talks to try and revive the nuclear deal fell apart early in his administration. He is looking for sort of a regional multilateral approach.

The question now, I think, is what sort of continuity will exist in the space that Raisi leaves behind? Is there sort of this back channel that still can exist for the U.S. and Tehran to talk about, for example, these proxy battles that you're seeing in the region, this tit for tat back and forth between Iran and Israel? The U.S. has sort of determined through these back channels that Iran doesn't want a broader conflict.

That is something that President Biden will still be working to determine as he and his team assess this vacuum that now exists at the top.

ANDERSON: And of course, his national security advisor, Jake Sullivan has been in region, not least in neighboring Saudi Arabia, where he has been in the throes of working out the details on that U.S.-Saudi bilateral deal, which includes, of course, Kevin, a nuclear, a civil nuclear program component, bulwark, as you say, this bilateral deal to the influence of Iran in this region. It's good to have you. Thank you.

Ahead, more on the death of the Iranian President, Ebrahim Raisi, including what his loss means for Iran and the wider region. Stay with us.