Iran has rejected the visa applications of three congressman who sought to inspect the country’s nuclear sites and visit American hostages held in its prisons, the Washington Free Beacon reported on Tuesday.
In a letter sent to the U.S. State Department last week, Iran’s foreign ministry dismissed visa requests from Representatives Mike Pompeo (R – Kan.), Lee Zeldin (R – N.Y.), and Frank LoBiondo (R – N.J.) as a “publicity stunt.”
The ministry accused the congressmen of attempting “to dictate the policies of other countries,” and emphasized that they would not be allowed to inspect any nuclear sites. “No [deal] participant, including the United States, and certainly no citizen or official of these countries, can arrogate any such right to monitor the implementation of [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] to itself, nor are they authorized by the JCPOA or other provisions of international law to encroach upon Iranian sovereignty by claiming such monitoring authority,” the ministry wrote.
“This letter from Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif is entirely divorced from reality,” Pompeo told the Free Beacon. “My two congressional colleagues and I followed all the necessary procedures—filling out applications, writing letters, meeting with staff, following up on the status, and even hand delivering our materials to the Iranian Interests Section—and still the Iranians refuse to reply in a civilized or respectful manner.”
“After being designated by the U.S. Department of State as an official state sponsor of terrorism since 1984, the Islamic Republic of Iran continues to act as a rogue and hostile nation,” he continued. “I ask the Iranian government again—grant me a visa.”
The State Department would not comment on the Iranian decision, but noted that it had “no ability on the ground in Iran to support a congressional delegation,” and that it would not intervene on behalf of the congressmen “given the recently updated Travel Warning” to Iran.
The three congressmen applied for visas to visit Iran in February in order to observe the elections that took place in the country later that month. Iran did not initially reply to their requests.
The letter (.pdf) rejecting the congressmen’s visa requests boasts that since the nuclear was concluded, tens of thousands of visitors have received their visas to Iran “without any delay or complication.”
In Totalitarian Terror in Tehran, which was published in the May 2016 issue of The Tower Magazine, Annika Hernroth-Rothstein described the challenges involved in obtaining a visa to cover the February elections as a journalist.
Working on my own was never an option. This was made clear before I even boarded the flight to Iran. Once your visa is approved, you are assigned a government-approved agent to handle your schedule, accompany you to your meetings, and drive you from door to door. There are no real private conversations and no real privacy. As a result, what I take from my interviews are not merely the words, but the silences—what is left unsaid or implied. The agent comes at a considerable cost, of course, as do the plethora of written and stamped authorizations needed to accommodate appointments and plans. Every day, I am asked to spend at least an hour in the office of a government agency to report my movements, and my translator is taken aside to give his independent report. They are then checked against each other, carefully scrutinized for discrepancies. Sitting there waiting for final approval reminds me of worlds I have only known through books like 1984 and Kafka’s The Trial.
[Photo: Mark Taylor / Flickr ]