PHOTO:FILE
US President Barack Obama signed into law Friday a bill designed to bar Iran's pick for UN ambassador from US soil over his links to the 1979 American embassy hostage siege.
The spat over Hamid Aboutalebi's nomination has blown up amid a cautious thaw in relations between the US and Iran as Tehran's new leadership seeks to negotiate a nuclear treaty with global powers.
The United States, which hosts the UN, has said it would not issue a visa to Aboutalebi because he was involved in the hostage crisis at the US embassy in Tehran.
Iran, which does not want to select another candidate, asked the United Nations, in New York, to weigh in.
A committee on relations with the host country held a special session but failed to reach a conclusion.
"Iran and the US presented their views on the well-known incident concerning the denial of a visa to the new permanent representative of Iran," said Nicholas Emiliou, the Cypriot Ambassador, who led the committee.
He added that "we will continue to be in touch with the relevant delegations," but did not give a date on any potential further meeting and will monitor the diplomatic impasse.
In 1979, dozens of American diplomats and staff were held for 444 days by radical Iranian students at the embassy in Tehran.
The protracted standoff profoundly shocked the United States and led to the severing of all diplomatic ties between the US and Iran for the past three decades.
As the host government, the United States is generally obliged to issue visas to diplomats who serve at the United Nations.
Aboutalebi, a veteran diplomat who currently heads Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's political affairs bureau, has insisted he was not part of the hostage-taking in November 1979, when a Muslim student group seized the US embassy after the overthrow of the pro-Western shah.
He has acknowledged he served a limited role as a translator for the students who took the Americans hostage.
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@unbelievable: Generally, you cannot control revolutionary zeal. Especially if another country is providing protection to somebody you are revolting against - which is exactly what happened in this case. Iranian students were revolting against their Shah, who fled to the US who provided him protection. Of course they became angry and beseiged the US embassy.
Iran should have been booted out of the UN after taking diplomatic hostages .... end of story.