A European Union offer to find the helicopter that crashed killing the Iranian president was overshadowed by a row after a commissioner tweeted “#EUSolidarity” with Iran.

Janez Lenarcic, the EU’s crisis commissioner, said the bloc was using its Copernicus emergency satellite mapping service to track down the aircraft, which was carrying Ebrahim Raisi.

The helicopter crashed on Sunday over mountainous terrain in heavy fog, beginning a large-scale search that lasted more than 12 hours until the wreckage was found on Monday morning.

“Upon Iranian request for assistance we are activating the EU’s Copernicus rapid response mapping service,” Mr Lenarcic said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

But his use of the hashtag “#EUSolidarity” sparked anger among members of the European Parliament and some European leaders.

They said it was a “mockery” of those fighting for human rights under the Tehran regime.

“EU solidarity with evil,” said Geert Wilders, who is on the cusp of entering government in the Netherlands for the first time after sealing a coalition agreement last week.

“I hope Iran will soon become a secular state again, with freedom for the Iranian people and without an oppressive and barbaric Islamic mullah regime,” the hard-Right firebrand said.

“It is an absolute mystery to me how the EU Commission can show #EUSolidarity with Iran. What a miserable hashtag, what a mockery of the brave fighters for human rights in Iran. I expect an explanation for this,” said Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, a lead candidate for the liberals in this June’s European elections.

“How about ensuring human rights defenders and other victims of this regime in need of assistance get emergency visas for EU?,” added Hannah Neumann, a German Green MEP.

A European Commission official told the Politico website the social media post was consistent with EU guidelines on humanitarian aid but admitted they found it “odd”.

Iran is detaining a Swedish EU official called Johan Floderus, as well as being implicated in supplying drones to Russia for its war in Ukraine.

Charles Michel, the European Council president, offered the EU’s “sincere condolences” after Mr Raisi’s death was confirmed on Monday.