No Visa for Iran’s UN Ambassador
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MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — The White House won’t issue a visa for Iran’s chosen UN ambassador, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said today, after the Senate approved a Ted Cruz bill Monday—by voice vote, no less—to bar Hamid Aboutalebi from entering the U.S.
“We have informed the United Nations and Iran that we will not issue a visa to Mr. Abu Talebi. We certainly share the intent of the bill passed by Congress, as we have already told the U.N. and Iran that we will not issue a visa,” Carney said, noting that “we share the intent of the bill.
Hosting the United Nations in New York entails certain international obligations, and Carney referred reporters to the U.S. Mission to the UN legal staff for questions about legal implications of denying—and, essentially, exercising a unilateral veto—of another country’s selection of a UN ambassador.
Aboutalebi was part of a student group that held American hostages at the US embassy in Tehran after its seizure in 1979.
Carney said the U.S. has communicated to Iran that its UN ambassador pick was “not viable.” Carney said the White House does not expect this development to harm nuclear talks.
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