Tehran, IRNA – The head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS), Pir-Hossein Koulivand, has rejected reports that Iran relied on foreign aid to find the wreckage of the helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his accompanying delegation.

Koulivand said in an interview on Monday that the rescue operation to find the wreckage of the helicopter carrying the Iranian President and his accompanying delegation was completely carried out by Iranian rescue teams and Iranian drones.

He added that it was Iranian rescuers who found the wreckage of the helicopter at around 5:00 am Monday (local time).

In that operation that lasted for hours, rescue team members from various agencies, including firefighting stations, the IRCS, emergency services, IRGC, Basij, the Army, and local forces cooperated.

On Sunday, President Raisi was returning from a ceremony to open the Qiz Qalasi Dam on Iran’s border with Azerbaijan to the inauguration of the “Tabriz Refinery Upgrade Project” in the Dizamar forest area between the village of Ouzi and Pir Davoud when his helicopter crashed in Varzaqan region.

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