A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his foreign minister crashed on Sunday as it was crossing mountain terrain in heavy fog, an Iranian official told Reuters.

According to the official, rescuers were making their way to the site of the incident.

The official said the lives of Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian were “at risk following the helicopter crash”, which happened on the way back from a visit to Iran’s border with Azerbaijan.

“We are still hopeful but information coming from the crash site is very concerning,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The bad weather was complicating rescue efforts, the state news agency IRNA reported. The chief of staff of Iran’s army ordered all the resources of the army and the elite Revolutionary Guard to be put to use in the search and rescue operations.

This is a developing story and will be updated accordingly.

Rosemary DiCarlo, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA), met Sunday with Hedayatullah Badri, acting head of Da Afghanistan Bank, where the two sides discussed the economic situation, financial and banking sector, DAB said in a statement.

In this meeting, Badri said that the sanctions imposed on Afghanistan’s banking sector by the international community has had a negative impact on Afghanistan’s financial stability and caused more losses to the people.

She said the sanctions have weakened people’s financial ability and made it difficult for Afghan banks to access international financial and banking systems.

According to her, Da Afghanistan Bank, the country’s central bank, has been able to better manage the liquidity problems of the banking sector in difficult conditions, but the existence of international sanctions makes international exchanges be done through unofficial channels, contrary to the laws, regulations and policies of DAB.

Badri stated that DAB has created a legal and regulatory framework for the development of small loans in the light of Islamic principles so that people can get small loans under easy conditions and develop their businesses.

DiCarlo, meanwhile, called the role of the banking sector in economic growth important and said that using the experiences of the countries of the world and strengthening the private sector in the development of financial services, granting small loans and Islamic financing is very important and requires joint work.

Islamabad would like Beijing to speak to Kabul about the issue of terrorism, Pakistan’s Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal said.

Speaking in an interview with VOA released on Sunday, Iqbal said that Pakistan has concerns on certain groups that are operating out of Afghanistan and carrying out terrorism actions.

“The terrorists who committed the recent incident against Chinese workers also came from Afghanistan, so I think this is a cause of concern, and we also hope that China would also persuade Afghanistan because Afghans listen to the Chinese government in the region,” Iqbal said.

The official said that as a result of crises and conflicts over the last couple of decades in Afghanistan, Pakistan has not been able to invest in its infrastructure, and its economy has developed two major bottlenecks – energy blockage and infrastructure blockage.

Referring to Afghanistan, he said that Pakistan has an agreement with China to have a third country as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) has previously rejected Pakistan’s allegations against Afghanistan over security incidents.