ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The United States is not apologizing for imposing aircraft sanctions on Iran following the crushing of a 45-year-old helicopter which killed Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and several other top officials on Sunday, state department spokesperson said on Monday.
“We are not gonna apologise for our sanctions regime at all. The Iranian government has used its aircraft to transport equipment to support terrorism. So we will continue to fully enforce our sanctions regime, including our sanctions regime on aircraft for use by the Iranian government,“ Mathew Miller told Rudaw’s Diyar Kurda during a press briefing on Monday.
“Ultimately, it is the Iranian government that is responsible for the decision to fly a 45-year-old helicopter in what is described as poor weather conditions, not any other actor,” he added.
The crash occurred in East Azerbaijan province in a mountainous area with dense fog and bad weather conditions after the delegation returned from the inauguration ceremony of a dam jointly built by Iran and Azerbaijan. The death of the officials was confirmed after rescue teams found the crashed chopper early Monday.
Miller said in a statement earlier on Monday that Washington expresses its “official condolences” for the death of Raisi and other members of his delegation, including Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
Iran and the US are arch-enemies, waging proxy wars in the Middle East. The October 7 attack by Hamas fighters on Israel and the ensuing Israeli relentless offensive on Gaza Strip have deteriorated Washington-Tehran thorny ties.
US interests have been targeted by pro-Iran militia groups in Iraq and Syria in recent years. In response, Washington carried out several deadly attacks on these groups.
Washington has slapped Tehran with crippling sanctions for the latter’s support for anti-US militia groups in the Middle East.
Iranian state media identified the crashed helicopter as Bell 212. This model was developed by a US company for the Canadian army in the 1960s, according to the BBC.
Jay Hernandez, Senior Military Communication Strategist at Bell Textron, told Rudaw via email on Monday that they do not conduct any businesses in Iran.
"We can confirm that Bell does not conduct any business in Iran or support their helicopter fleet, and we do not have knowledge about the active state of the helicopter involved in this accident,” he said.
