Funeral ceremonies for President Ebrahim Raisi and other victims of the May 19 helicopter crash are underway, while questions are being asked about the incident.
Iran’s newly elected Assembly of Experts convened its first session, while its expected chairman, former President Ebrahim Raisi’s seat was empty.
Khamenei told the Assembly that their important task would be to select a successor for himself – in case of his passing.
Iran International has wrapped up its live coverage of the reactions to and developments surrounding the deaths of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Amir-Abdollahian, the foreign minister and other high-level officials in a chopper crash on Sunday.
You can continue to follow our latest updates from our website here.
Russian President Vladimir Putin praised the late president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, as a reliable partner always good to his word and asked the chairman of parliament on Tuesday to convey his sympathy at memorial events.
"He was truly a reliable partner, a man sure of himself, who acted in the national interest. He was, of course, a man of his word and it was always good to work with him. What I mean is if we came to an agreement on something, you could be sure the agreement was carried out," Putin said.
The Kremlin leader asked Volodin, who will be attending memorial events in Iran, to pass on "words of our sincere condolences in connection with this tragedy".
China will continue to strengthen strategic cooperation with Iran, safeguard common interests, and make endeavors for regional and world peace, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in talks on Tuesday with Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Mahdi Safari, while attending a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
"Iran has lost outstanding leaders and China has lost good friends and partners, said Wang, according to Xinhua news.
"Given the horrible acts that he (Ebrahim Raisi) engaged in, both as a judge and as president, to the extent he can no longer engage in them, yes, the Iranian people are probably better off" now that he is dead, US Secretary of State Tony Blinken said in a heated exchange with Senator Ted Cruz during a US Senate hearing on Tuesday.
The uncle and aunt of Pouya Bakhtiari, the young Iranian protester killed during Iran's 2019 protests, have revealed that their cousin Behrouz Ghadimi was the flight technician of the Iranian president's chopper that crashed on Sunday, killing Ghadimi and all the officials on board.
Mehrdad and Saba Bakhtiari broke the news in separate posts on Instagram and X.
Asked about his position on President Ebrahim Raisi's death, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters on Tuesday that "obviously what we all want to see is regional stability at this particular moment," but Ottawa's "focus is on the Iranian people."
"There are significant tensions in the Middle East that means any uncertainties need to be smoothed over, but our focus with regards to Iran is the Iranian people who deserve more rights, more freedoms, deserve to be living in a democracy and who continue to call for that bravely in the face of the government that continues to oppress and marginalize and attack its own people," he told reporters during a visit to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Asked if his government has reached out to send any message to Iran, he said, "We continue to want to see regional stability."
After funerals in the cities of Tabriz and Qom, the bodies of President Ebrahim Raisi and the other officials killed in the Sunday chopper crash were transferred to Tehran on Tuesday afternoon, where a "farewell" ceremony was held at the Grand Mosalla Mosque.
At the main funeral slated for Wednesday, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei will pray for the dead, before they are moved to the northeastern Iranian cities of Birjand and Mashhad for their last two funerals.
Republican Senator John Barrasso on Tuesday described Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi as "a mass murderer who targeted, threatened, and attacked Americans."
It is "shocking" and "a terrible mistake" that the Biden admin issued a statement mourning the death of "the Butcher of Tehran", Senator Barrasso told Secretary of State Anthony Blinken during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
Defending the statement, Blinken said, "It's something that we do as a normal course of business" and that "changes nothing about the fact that Raisi was engaged in reprehensible conduct including repressing his own people" and "changes nothing about our policy."
In their bid to keep Western media attention focused on President Raisi's funeral, Iranian authorities are targeting the families of slain protesters who expressed joy over his death on social platforms.
Writing on X, Foad Choobin said his sisters Hengameh Choobin and Roja Choobin were threatened by Iranian intelligence agents on Tuesday. They were warned that if they continued posting stories on social media to celebrate Raisi’s death, they would “kill their other children too.”
Hengameh Choobin is the mother of Artin Rahmani, a 17-year-old protester killed by regime forces in November 2022.Rahmani was killed on the same night as another youth, 10-year-old Kian Pirfalak amid nationwide anti-regime protests, dubbed the ‘Woman Life Freedom’ uprising.