United States expels Iranian delegation from New York

The departure from the USA of the Iranian delegation that went to New York for the last UN General Assembly, which took place on the night between Monday and Tuesday, was preceded by an order from the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who had decided to "expel" it because it had remained in US territory "beyond the permitted period": Axios reports this, citing an administration official.

“Secretary Rubio expelled the Iranian delegation, which had overstayed its welcome. The UN General Assembly had ended, so it was time for them to leave,” this source said.

A second source confirmed that the United States had asked the Iranian delegation to leave the country, but specified that the Iranian delegation, which included Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi after President Masoud Pezeshkian had initially attended the UN Assembly, still planned to return to Tehran on Monday evening. The group took a flight from New York to Doha at 1.20am on Tuesday, Axios adds.

According to some sources cited by the Associated Press on its website, the Iranian delegation instead intended to stay in the US until Wednesday.

For its part, the delegation itself denied on its official profile on X that its departure took place at different times than expected. "The departure from New York took place on Monday evening, according to the program also communicated to the US State Department on September 17." In the statement, the Tehran team also accuses the US State Department of having "spread false news" after that, in the conversations held between the US and Iran during the US stay of Araghchi and collaborators, the American side "achieved nothing".