Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Seyed Abbas Araqchi lashed out at Washington for inhumanly preventing Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif from paying visit to Tehran’s envoy to the UN Majid Takht Ravanchi at a hospital in New York. RNA - In a message released on his Instagram page on Saturday, Araqchi criticized the US inhuman act to prevent Zarif from visiting Takht Ravanchi at hospital.
Araqchi expressed regret for the US administration over holding humanitarian issues hostage for political aims.
The reaction came after American authorities forbade Zarif from visiting a New York hospital to see Takht Ravanchi, who is under cancer treatment.
The US State Department said it would allow the hospital travel request only if Iran released one of the US citizens claimed to be "wrongfully detained" in Iran, AP reported.
Iran’s foreign minister is in New York for the 74th annual session of the UN General Assembly.
In July, the United States imposed tight travel restrictions on Zarif before a visit that month to the United Nations, as well as on Iranian diplomats and their families living in New York, which Zarif described as “basically inhuman.”
Unless they receive prior approval from Washington, they are only allowed to travel within a small area of Manhattan, Queens and to and from John F. Kennedy airport.
Iran’s UN mission Spokesman Alireza Miryousefi said Takht Ravanchi is being treated for cancer in a hospital not far away in Manhattan’s Upper East Side neighborhood, a 20-minute walk from the United Nations Headquarters.
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