Two diplomats from Iran's UN General Assembly delegation were "removed" from the United States on Saturday, according to a Donya-e-Eqtesad report citing Axios. An unnamed US official said the two had failed to comply with a request that they leave New York together with the rest of the delegation. Axios published the story directly; Iran International also confirmed the same claim, attributing it to Axios.
According to the US official, the State Department had on Monday instructed Iran's UN mission that all delegation members must leave the country immediately. On Friday, the Iranian mission was informed that the two diplomats were known to have remained in New York despite this request, and the order to leave was repeated. The official said one of the diplomats left the United States on Friday evening and the second on Saturday morning. The official described Secretary of State Marco Rubio as "determined": "Rubio showed he wasn't joking. Two members of the Iranian delegation were still in New York long after the UN General Assembly ended; now they've been removed from the country."
Axios notes that the move comes at a time when diplomatic efforts to end the Iran-US war have stalled and the likelihood of renewed fighting has grown. The report was also linked to a separate development involving protests during Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's UN speech and a walkout by 77 countries; however, this is not directly connected to the decision to expel the diplomats.
How the Persian press covered it
Donya-e-Eqtesad ran the story under the headline "Axios's claim," presenting the incident as a new sign of US-Iran tension without adding commentary. The opposition, diaspora-based Iran International also published a direct summary of the same source; there is no significant difference in framing between the two outlets' accounts, and both remained faithful to Axios's original text.
Context
The delegations Iran sends to the UN General Assembly are one of the rare ways for Tehran, which has no diplomatic relations with the United States, to set foot on US soil. Their length of stay and freedom of movement in New York are restricted by the United States; the delegation is expected to leave the country quickly once the General Assembly ends. This incident is being read less as a suspension of the right of diplomatic representation than as a symbolic sign of tension at a time when talks to end the war between the two countries have stalled. Because the identities of the people involved have not been released, the story contains no names or charges.
The emphasis on US Secretary of State Marco Rubio's determination comes as Washington tightens its oversight of Iran's presence at the UN. During the same UN General Assembly session, there were protests in the hall during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech, and 77 countries from different parts of the world walked out of the General Assembly hall; however, that walkout was unrelated to the two expelled Iranian diplomats and was a separate development. According to diplomatic sources, official channels of contact between Tehran and Washington remain limited and indirect, which means every minor dispute quickly leaks to the public.
