Two Turkish firefighting planes, one helicopter and eight personnel will arrive in Iran on Saturday to help quell fires in the Hyrcanian forest in the country's north, Iranian environment chief Shina Ansari said on Friday.
“There are warnings that the fire spread risk is high and we need to act accordingly,” official media cited Ansari as saying.
The blaze in the Elit area ongoing since last week, fueled by wind and dry conditions. Iranian helicopters and ground teams deployed round-the-clock, but rugged terrain has hampered efforts.
Iran seeks international aid as the massive wildfire rages in UNESCO-listed Hyrcanian forest near the town of Chalous.
“Heartbreaking scenes from Elit, Iran, where wildfire is damaging parts of the ancient Hyrcanian forests — a UNESCO World Heritage treasure and one of Earth’s last temperate rainforests,” Kaveh Madani, director of the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health posted on X.
“Iranians are losing a natural heritage older than Persian civilization,” he added.
Authorities said protection units remained on high alert along the forest front in western Mazandaran, where several smaller fires have been reported in recent days.
Iran's Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref ordered on Friday urgent provision of firefighting equipment and resources for the ongoing Elit forest wildfire.
The Hyrcanian Forests stretch along the southern Caspian Sea coast in Iran and Azerbaijan. This ancient temperate broadleaf and mixed forest ecoregion dates back 25-50 million years, surviving past ice ages as a refugium.
They host over 3,200 vascular plant species, 150 endemic and 180 bird species, plus mammals like the Persian leopard, brown bear, lynx and Caspian red deer.
Wildfires have been burning for over two weeks as officials warned that heat, wind and dry vegetation were fueling the blaze.
“Like the diplomacy which was assaulted by Israel and the US in June, the Cairo Agreement has been killed by the US and the E3,” Araghchi wrote on X, referring to Britain, France and Germany.
He said the chain of events began when “Iran was suddenly attacked by Israel and then the US” on the eve of a new round of indirect nuclear talks.
“When Iran later signed a deal with the IAEA in Cairo to resume inspections despite the bombings, the E3 pursued UN sanctions against our people under US pressure,” he wrote.
Araghchi said that when Iran began allowing International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors access to its facilities, “the US and the E3 ganged up to censure Iran” at the agency’s Board of Governors.
“Iran is not the party that seeks to manufacture another crisis,” he added. “The official termination of the Cairo Agreement is the direct outcome of their provocations.”
Tehran says resolution is politically driven
His comments followed Iran’s announcement that it will respond to a resolution passed on Thursday by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors, which Tehran called “illegal and unjustified.” The Foreign Ministry said the measure, backed by Washington and its European allies, was a “political misuse of the Agency” and had nullified the Cairo inspection accord reached in September.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said Tehran had officially informed the IAEA that the understanding reached in Cairo was “no longer valid.” “The so-called Cairo accord, which had been achieved through lengthy negotiations and Iran’s goodwill, is now considered void,” he told state media.
The ministry said the United States and the three European countries “ignored Iran’s responsible and good-faith conduct, disrupting the positive path that had emerged between Iran and the Agency, and forced Iran to declare the termination of the September 9 understanding.”
Resolution presses Iran for access after attacks
The IAEA Board of Governors adopted the Western-backed resolution urging Iran to provide full access and information about its nuclear program. Diplomats said the measure passed with 19 votes in favor, three against and 12 abstentions, with Russia, China and Niger voting against it.
The resolution calls on Iran to allow verification of its enriched uranium stockpile and inspections at sites damaged by US and Israeli airstrikes in June. Iran says those attacks killed several nuclear scientists and halted cooperation with the Agency because of security concerns.
Earlier this week, Araghchi said Washington’s approach amounted to “dictation, not negotiation,” accusing the US of trying to achieve through diplomacy what it failed to gain by force. “They want us to accept zero enrichment and limits on our defense capabilities,” he said. “This is not negotiation.”