US President Barack Obama signed into law Friday a bill designed to bar Hamid Aboutalebi, the Iranian regime’s pick for UN ambassador, from US soil over his role in the 1979 American embassy hostage-taking.
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.
The Iranian regime 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 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.
According to diplomats, Belarus, Cuba and North Korea were in favor of Iranian regime during the session that lasted barely an hour.
The committee can make recommendations to the UN General Assembly or seek legal advice, but did not, said a diplomat, adding: “Iran has not been successful.”
Abutalebi was a key member of the student group, known as “the followers of the Imam’s Line” that stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. Although he has insisted that his role was limited to translation and negotiation, many U.S. lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have described Abutalebi as a terrorist and a key conspirator in the hostage crisis.
He was also an active participant in the 1993 assassination of Mohammad Hossein Naghdi, the representative in Rome of Iran’s parliament-in-exile, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).
In the early hours of March 16, 1993, Mr. Naghdi was assassinated in the streets of Rome by two assailants on his way to his office. Naghdi was formerly the Charge d’Affaires of Tehran in Rome (the most senior Iranian diplomat in Italy at the time).
He defected in April 1982 in protest against a wave of executions and the intensifying suppression of political dissident in Iran. He joined the NCRI and played an instrumental role in exposing the atrocities and nefarious geopolitical intentions of the mullahs, and in promoting recognition of the Iranian resistance in Italian political circles.
Source: News agencies