Russian President Vladimir Putin, making his third foreign trip since his re-election in March, arrived in Uzbekistan on Sunday and met with his counterpart Shavkat Mirziyoyev ahead of the start of formal talks.

Russian news agencies said Mirziyoyev met Putin on arrival in Tashkent in the evening and the two leaders traveled together in a single car.

Photos and video footage posted on the Kremlin website and by Russian news agencies showed Putin visiting the New Uzbekistan park in Tashkent and laying a wreath at a monument to Uzbek independence.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, quoted by news agencies, told Russian television that Russia was open to broader cooperation on gas supplies with Uzbekistan, saying “the possibilities here are very extensive”.

Putin has already visited China and Belarus since securing re-election by a wide margin.

The Kremlin leader has traveled abroad only infrequently since the start of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest last March on suspicion of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. The Kremlin denies those allegations.

At least 24 people, including many children, died in a fire that broke out on Saturday evening in a family entertainment venue in the western Indian state of Gujarat, a government official said.

With rescue efforts continuing at the scene in the Rajkot district, the local mayor told Reuters the death toll was expected to rise, Reuters reported.

“Our focus is on rescue operations and saving lives. We will ensure strict action is taken against the people who are responsible for this incident,” Mayor Nayana Pedhadiya said.

Television images showed a massive fire engulfing the TRP game zone and thick clouds of smoke emanating from the site. The entire structure was gutted in the blaze.

A police official at the local civil hospital said some of the bodies were charred beyond recognition.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on social media platform X that the local administration was working to provide assistance to those affected.

“Extremely distressed by the fire mishap in Rajkot. My thoughts are with all those who have lost their loved ones,” Modi said in the post.

The district’s chief fire officer, IV Kher, said firefighters had almost brought the fire under control.

“The cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained,” he told Reuters.

Gujarat Chief Minster Bhupendra Patel said an investigation into the incident had been handed to a Special Investigation Team (SIT), and television reports said two people had been detained by Rajkot police in connection with the incident.

President Ebrahim Raisi was buried in the Iranian holy city of Mashhad on Thursday as many thousands of mourners packed its streets for his funeral, four days after he died in a helicopter crash, footage broadcast by Iranian media showed, Reuters reported.

Raisi, 63, was widely seen as a candidate to succeed 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who wields ultimate power in Iran. Mohammad Mokhber, who had been first vice president, is serving as interim president until a June election.

The burial ceremony was attended by Iranian government and military officials, as well as religious personalities.

Flowers were thrown at his coffin as it moved slowly aboard a truck through throngs of mourners to be buried at the gold-domed Imam Reza shrine, Iran’s holiest Islamic site and revered as the resting place of the 9th century Imam Ali al-Reza. Raisi hailed from Mashhad, 900 km (560 miles) east of Tehran.

Earlier, thousands had paid their respects as his coffin was driven in a motorcade through the eastern city of Birjand, read the report.

Eight passengers and crew were killed when the helicopter crashed in mountainous terrain near the Azerbaijan border. They included Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian.

Iran proclaimed five days of mourning for Raisi, who enacted the hardline policies of his mentor Khamenei aimed at entrenching Shi’ite clerical power, cracking down on public dissent and adopting a tough line on foreign policy issues such as talks with Washington to revive Iran’s 2015 nuclear pact.

The presidential election has been scheduled for June 28, Reuters reported.

A ceremony was held to commemorate Amirabdollahian at the foreign ministry in Tehran, where acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani described him as a martyr who had “guaranteed the revolutionary nature of the foreign ministry”.

Amirabdollahian was buried south of Tehran in the city of Rey’s Shah Abdolazim shrine, a mausoleum where notable Iranian politicians and artists are interred.