Iran calls granting visa for UN meetings a U.S. responsibility

TEHRAN, May 2 (MNA) – The U.S. has no right to refrain from issuing visas for other countries’ officials who want to attend United Nations’ conferences in New York, Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Saturday.

The remarks by Mottaki came as certain extremist politicians and groups in the U.S. are pressuring the Obama administration not to issue visa for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who plans to attend the NPT review conference in New York.

This is a U.S. responsibility to issue visas for countries’ representatives seeking to attend UN conferences, Mottaki told reporters in a joint press conference with Guinea’s Foreign Minister Alexandre Cece Loua.

Mottaki insisted that Washington must act based on its duties with regard to issuance of visas.

He went on to say that the UN and the Security Council should not be held hostage to the U.S.

Iran announced Thursday that Ahmadinejad was seeking a U.S. visa to attend the United Nation’s NPT conference in New York.

Within hours, at least one U.S. senator was demanding Ahmadinejad be turned away, and a New York organization was imploring the city’s hotels to deny him a bed, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

However, the U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters on Wednesday that if Ahmadinejad wants to attend the conference in New York, “I don't think we're going to stand in the way,” AFP reported.

The visit will coincide with stepped-up U.S. efforts to impose a new round of sanctions against Iran's peaceful nuclear programs.

President Ahmadinejad has been in New York several times, most recently for the UN General Assembly meeting last fall.

The UN meeting on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, held every five years, will start Monday and last through May 28.