Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Tehran Dialogue Forum 2020 on Tuesday, Zarif said the White House has denied him a visa to attend the UN Security Council meeting because the US officials are afraid that someone would show up and tell the truth to the American people.
“However, they (US officials) are mistaken, because the world is not confined to New York, and we can talk to the world from Tehran too,” the minister added.
This is a lie that the US did not have enough time to issue a visa, Zarif underlined, saying the Americans are pretending that Iran has called for the UNSC meeting after the assassination of senior commander General Qassem Soleimani, while the visa request had been submitted to the US a couple of weeks ago.
A US official said on Monday that Washington has denied a visa to Zarif that would have allowed him to attend the United Nations Security Council meeting in New York on Thursday on the topic of upholding the UN Charter.
Under the 1947 UN “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.
The meeting and Zarif’s travel had been planned before the latest flare-up in tensions between Washington and Tehran following the US assassination of General Soleimani in Baghdad.