Iranian president, FM secure visas for UN meeting in NY

By James Reinl

UNITED NATIONS (AA) - The United States issued visas to President Hassan Rouhani and other Iranian officials to travel to the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York, an Iranian official confirmed Thursday to Anadolu Agency.

Alireza Miryousefi, spokesman for Iran’s mission to the UN, said Washington provided visas to Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif for next week’s meeting.

“Yes. They did,” Miryousefi said in an email.

Rouhani is set to address the UN General Assembly on Wednesday morning in a session in which presidents, kings and other leaders lay out policy goals in public and meet with each other behind closed doors.

Iran and the U.S. have been at loggerheads since Washington pulled out of a multination nuclear deal in 2018 and slapped sanctions on Tehran in what it calls a “maximum pressure” policy to deter Iranian aggression.

Tensions deepened after a Sept. 14 attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called an Iranian “act of war” against the world’s largest oil producer. Iran has denied the charge.