Khamenei has declared five days of national mourning. Memorials for Raisi and his entourage began on Tuesday in the city of Tabriz and the Shia clerical centre of Qom.
Iranian media reported that in addition to closing cinemas, the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance has also halted all cultural and artistic activities across the country, including concerts, for seven days.
All Cultural Heritage Week events have been postponed, museums closed, all sports competitions suspended, wedding halls closed and wedding ceremonies postponed.
Following Wednesday’s procession, Raisi’s body will be taken to his hometown of Mashhad in the country’s northeast, where he will be buried after funeral rites at the Imam Reza Shrine.
The remains of others who were killed in the crash will also be sent to their hometowns to be buried.
On April 3-4 of this year, Samarkand will host the first-ever high-level meeting between the European Union and the Central Asian countries. This landmark event will open a new chapter in relations between the regions, marking a transition to a qualitatively new level of multilateral cooperation. The very fact of organizing such a dialogue highlights the EU's strong interest in developing cooperation and its commitment to strengthening partnerships with the Central Asian states.
On 31 March, the city of Khujand, Tajikistan, hosted a trilateral summit attended by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev of Uzbekistan, President Sadyr Japarov of Kyrgyzstan, and President Emomali Rahmon of Tajikistan. This momentous occasion marked the culmination of the border delimitation process among the three nations, a pivotal milestone in Central Asian geopolitics.
The latest issue of Eurasia focuses on agriculture. We conducted an interview with István Nagy, the Hungarian Minister of Agriculture, and report on the latest innovations in Asian agriculture.