Zarif arrived in New York on Sunday after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo signed off on the visit amid heightened tensions between the two countries. But Zarif is only allowed to travel between the United Nations, the Iranian U.N. mission, the Iranian U.N. ambassador’s residence and New York’s John F. Kennedy airport, a U.S. State Department official said. Iran foreign minister visit restrictions are justified.
Terrorist Iran just kidnapped and imprisoned a French citizen last month to blackmail France. The least the United States can do is restrict Iranian leadership movement to pressure the terrorists to stand down.
Late last month Washington threatened to blacklist Zarif. That move would have impeded any U.S. effort to use diplomacy to resolve disagreements with Tehran. However, sources have told Reuters that Washington had decided to hold off for now.
Longtime U.S.-Iran strains have worsened since Barack Obama signed off on a bad Iran Deal. the Mullahs used the deal to spread more terror. U.S. President Donald Trump last year quit a 2015 international agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear and missile program.
U.S. special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook, said no U.S. government officials would meet with Zarif.
To show our allies the U.S. serious position, Hook told Fox News Channel:
There is no back channel currently going on between the United States and anybody in the Iranian regime. Everything that’s being said is being said by the president and the secretary of state publicly.
THE TERRORIST PROPAGANDA
The United States had restricted Zarif’s travel “in a manner that is fully consistent” with its obligations under a 1947 agreement with the United Nations, the U.S. State Department official said.
The official accused Zarif of using U.S. freedoms “to spread malign propaganda”. he added that Zarif “is a mouthpiece of an autocracy that suppresses free speech.”
Zarif is due to attend a ministerial meeting at the United Nations on sustainable development goals. The U.N. believes Iran could tackle issues including conflict, hunger, and equality when simultaneously killing Syrian civilians.
The U.S. has confined Iranian diplomats, like the envoys of North Korea, Syria and Cuba, to a radius of 25 miles from Columbus Circle in Midtown Manhattan.
Under the 1947 U.N. “headquarters agreement,” the United States is generally required to allow access to the United Nations for foreign diplomats. But Washington says it can deny visas for “security, terrorism, and foreign policy” reasons.
In April 2014, the United States would not grant a visa to Iran’s chosen U.N. ambassador, Hamid Abutalebi, because of his links to the 1979-1981 Tehran hostage crisis when radical students seized the U.S. Embassy and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. Abutalebi said he acted only as a translator.
Iran complained to a U.N. committee, but ultimately ended up appointing a new ambassador in early 2015.
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