Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif complained on Wednesday about the tight U.S. travel restrictions imposed on members of the Iranian UN mission and their families, which, he charged, put them “under basically inhuman conditions.” The restrictions, which also apply to Zarif himself during his visit this week to UN headquarters in New York, basically limit the Iranian diplomats and their families to traveling between the United Nations, the Iranian UN mission, the Iranian UN ambassador's residence, and JFK Airport. “It is certainly not a friendly action,” Zarif added. He’s right. Nothing that the Iranian regime has done deserves any “friendly” action by the United States.
Recall that it was Zarif himself who warned the United States just last month that it "cannot expect to stay safe.” Allowing Zarif and his cadre of UN diplomats and their families to roam freely around New York City and beyond would be insane in the face of such threats. As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said sardonically on Sunday, “U.S. diplomats don’t roam around Tehran, so we don’t see any reason for Iranian diplomats to roam freely around New York City, either.”
A spokesperson for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said that the UN secretariat has been in contact with “the permanent missions of the United States and Iran to the U.N. and has conveyed its concerns to the host country.” What concerns? There are no valid concerns. The United States is meeting its obligations as the host country in accordance with the UN headquarters agreement, which the UN entered into with the United States in 1947. As Secretary Pompeo said, “It’s absolutely appropriate that we provide Foreign Minister Zarif and his delegation with all the rights that they are due under the U.N. headquarters agreement, and nothing more than that.”
The headquarters agreement states that federal, state or local authorities of the United States shall not impose any impediments on representatives of UN member states – whether friendly or not - “to transit to or from” the area that the agreement defines as the UN “headquarters district.” The headquarters district is basically the area in Manhattan between East 42nd and East 48th Street, and between 1st Avenue and FDR Drive, where the UN headquarters buildings and grounds are located. “In the case of Members whose governments are not recognized by the United States,” the agreement states, their representatives are entitled to diplomatic privileges and immunities “only within the headquarters district, at their residences and offices outside the district, in transit between the district and such residences and offices, and in transit on official business to or from foreign countries.”
Subject to these limited transit rights that the U.S. must respect, “the United States retains full control and authority over the entry of persons or property into the territory of the United States and the conditions under which persons may remain or reside there.”
In short, the headquarters agreement does not provide Zarif or the Iranian UN diplomats and their families the right to eat in fancy restaurants anywhere they choose in Manhattan, to see a Broadway show, or take a weekend respite in the Hamptons. They are only entitled to enter the U.S. and to travel from there to and between the very limited number of sites within the UN headquarters city of New York specified in the headquarters agreement in order to conduct UN-related business. That’s it. For Zarif to complaint that these restrictions impose “inhuman conditions” on the Iranians is a joke. He would do well to worry first about the inhuman conditions his authoritarian regime imposes every day on its own people.
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif complained on Wednesday about the tight U.S. travel restrictions imposed on members of the Iranian UN mission and their families, which, he charged, put them “under basically inhuman conditions.” The restrictions, which also apply to Zarif himself during his visit this week to UN headquarters in New York, basically limit the Iranian diplomats and their families to traveling between the United Nations, the Iranian UN mission, the Iranian UN ambassador's residence, and JFK Airport. “It is certainly not a friendly action,” Zarif added. He’s right. Nothing that the Iranian regime has done deserves any “friendly” action by the United States.
