U.S. Delays Visa to Iranian President

The Iranian Fars News Agency has reported that the United States has not issued a visa for Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad nor any members of his delegation so that they may attend the United Nations General Assembly later this month.

According to the report, Ahmadinejad is set to be a speaker at the meeting on September 23. Not issuing a visa would be a violation of a U.S.-U.N. agreement that facilitates the travel of foreign leaders so that they may speak at the UN, the report says.

Given that the report is by an Iranian news agency, it contains, not surprisingly, language blaming the United States for the delay in issuing Ahmadinejad's visa. The report says, "Ahmadinejad had the same problem last year when he wanted to go to New York. The US last year purposefully delayed the process to disrupt the president's travel schedule."

The United States did issue visas last year, the report notes, but only after a delay and after denying some members of Ahmadinejad's delegation entry into the country.

There's no love lost between the United States and Ahmadinejad, with the former accusing the latter of wanting to "wipe Israel off the map" and with the latter criticizing U.S. President George W. Bush on U.S. soil at a previous UN meeting. The report notes that Ahmadinejad wanted to lay a wreath at Ground Zero, site of the World Trade Center's Twin Towers destroyed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but his request was rejected by the city of New York.

Additionally, the United States and its European allies suspect Iran of secretly pursuing a nuclear weapons program, something Iran vehemently denies. The United Nations has imposed three sets of economic sanctions on Iran for noncompliance with UN resolutions regarding its nuclear program, and the United States and several European countries are pushing for a fourth round in the UN Security Council.

A U.S. National Intelligence Estimate from late 2007 said that the U.S. intelligence community was confident Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, when American military forces were invading neighboring Iraq and toppling the regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The same intelligence estimate said, however, that U.S. intelligence was only moderately confident that Iran had not resumed its nuclear weapons program since then.

Relations between the United States and Iran have been strained since Iranian students took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979, holding American hostages for more than 400 days.