Iran denounces US denial of UN visa to parliamentary delegation

Khaleej Times Online:

Iran on Saturday denounced as an "ugly act" the US decision to deny visas to an Iranian parliamentary delegation to attend the annual UN General Assembly session in New York, claiming it showed the Americans were not competent to serve as host to the United Nations.

Washington has given no reason for denying visas to the delegation that was expected to be headed by Iran's Parliamentary Speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel. READ MORE

The US, however, has indicated that Iran's new ultraconservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will receive a US visa to attend the session later this month.

US authorities decided to give the new president a visa after it finding that Ahmadinejad played no role in the 1979 takeover of the US Embassy in Teheran, as some in the United States had claimed.

The meeting of parliamentary delegations in New York was to have brought together parliamentary chiefs from 150 countries.

"Through this ugly and immoral act, the United States showed that it is not competent to host international organisations," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi was quoted as saying on Saturday by state-run radio.

Asefi said parliaments are considered symbols of democracy and denying visas to a parliamentary delegation was "obviously against democracy."

"The US constantly violates its international commitments and the international community should reconsider holding meetings in America," he said.