By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-09-18 15:48:27 | Updated at 2026-09-18 16:24:03
40 minutes ago
The United States will allow an Iranian delegation to attend the U.N. General Assembly in New York next week, the State Department said on Thursday.
A “core delegation from the Iranian regime” would be allowed to attend the meeting, in line with the United States’ obligations as the U.N.’s host country, a State Department spokesperson said.
The party is likely to include Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi.
“The delegation will be under travel restrictions and will face prohibitions on the purchase of luxury and other goods per our policy,” the State Department spokesperson said. “The delegation is smaller than last year.”
Rules Governed by 1947 Agreement
Under the 1947 “headquarters agreement,” which set the parameters for the U.N.’s headquarters to be located in New York, the United States is required to grant foreign diplomats access to the United Nations, regardless of the status of diplomatic relations between Washington and individual countries.
But Washington can deny visas on the basis of “security, terrorism and foreign policy.”
“The headquarters district shall be inviolable,” the 1947 agreement states. “Federal, state or local officers or officials of the United States, whether administrative, judicial, military or police, shall not enter the headquarters district to perform any official duties therein except with the consent of and under conditions agreed to by the Secretary-General.”
In the past, the U.S. government has barred the Iranian delegation from shops and restricted its movements between the U.N. headquarters on FDR Drive in Manhattan, the Iranian U.N. mission on 3rd Avenue, and John F. Kennedy Airport.
The 81st session of the U.N. General Assembly will begin on Sept. 22 and will be chaired for the first time by Khalilur Rahman, from Bangladesh, who was recently elected as the assembly’s president and takes over from the German Annalena Baerbock.
When the series of U.N. meetings ends on Sept. 29, it will be seven months since the start of the conflict between the United States, its ally Israel, and Iran.
Since initiating military operations, President Donald Trump has listed the U.S. objectives as destroying Iran’s navy, ending its missile production capacity, breaking up its support for regional proxies, and preventing it from attaining a nuclear weapon.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian (C) walks on his way to a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Sept. 24, 2025. Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, was named leader of Iran after his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in a U.S. strike on Feb. 28, at the start of Operation Epic Fury. Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen in public or on television since. He did not attend his father’s funeral in July.
Working in conjunction with Israel and other regional partners, U.S. forces carried out 38 consecutive days of strikes on Iran.
Iran responded with strikes on Israel and several Gulf states that host U.S. bases or are considered allies of Washington.
An interim ceasefire deal to end the conflict between the United States and Iran was reached in June, but the 60-day deal ran out, and talks on a long-term settlement broke down.
After a pause in military action for much of August, tit-for-tat strikes resumed following the unraveling of an interim ceasefire deal that was reached in June. There has been little progress on getting the peace process back on track.
The term of the U.N.’s current secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, runs out at the end of the year.
The early front-runner in the race to replace him—Rafael Mariano Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency—has since been joined by Rebeca Grynspan, from Costa Rica; Michelle Bachelet, from Chile; Macky Sall, from Senegal; and Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, from Guyana.
Reuters contributed to this report.
