Two members of the Iranian delegation from the last two weeks’ U.N. General Assembly meeting were sent home by the State Department on Friday night and Saturday morning, despite having been asked to leave days earlier.
“Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio means business,” a U.S. official told the Washington Examiner. “Two more members of the Iranian delegation were still in NY long after the United Nations General Assembly had passed. They have now been kicked out of the U.S.”
The diplomats remained in the U.S. throughout the week despite a Monday order for the entire delegation to leave the country immediately after the global summit ended. Rubio directed Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi and his delegation to leave following a weekend of talks in which “negotiations stalled,” according to Axios.
President Donald Trump used the global summit to reiterate his willingness to escalate military tensions with Iran regardless of how disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz may affect Republicans in November’s midterm elections. He spoke about the conflict again on Saturday afternoon, saying “we have a decision to make about Iran” and that the nation “is virtually giving up any plans of a nuclear weapon.”
Trump’s insistence on including certain details regarding Iran’s nuclear weapons program has emerged as a pressure point in negotiations, as have various ways to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz and thus bring down global oil prices. Voters have largely soured on Trump throughout his second term due to the unpopular conflict’s ties to stubbornly high inflation.
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Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Aragchi were granted heavily restricted visas to attend the annual meeting. Trump would later confirm he rejected the latest peace proposal from Iranian negotiators during the event, which Peseshkian said had the “same objectives” as the Memorandum of Understanding that fell apart over the summer.
“The Iranian delegation left New York on Monday evening, in accordance with the schedule that had also been communicated to the U.S. Department of State in advance on September 17,” the delegation said on social media following Rubio’s directive. “Having achieved nothing, the State Department has resorted to propagating baseless and worthless news.” The event was held in New York City between Sept. 18 and 28.