Iran has strongly denied claims that Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi sought asylum in the United States, while also rejecting Washington’s account that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered him and the Iranian delegation to leave New York.
Hassan Qashqavi, spokesman for the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, dismissed the reports as false in an interview with Iran’s Jamaran News late Monday.
Qashqavi was specifically asked about reports surrounding Araghchi’s final days in New York, including claims that Rubio had told the Iranian foreign minister to leave the United States and allegations that Araghchi had sought asylum.
“All of these reports are lies and there is absolutely no such thing,” Qashqavi said.
The Iranian official said Araghchi and other members of the delegation had travelled to the United States under the normal visa arrangements governing Iranian participation in meetings of the United Nations General Assembly.
He said nothing exceptional had happened during the delegation’s stay compared with previous years in which senior Iranian officials travelled to New York for UN meetings.
Qashqavi also rejected the suggestion that US authorities had disrupted the schedules of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian or Araghchi.
According to Qashqavi, the length of time Araghchi and other Iranian officials remained in New York after the main General Assembly meetings depended entirely on their diplomatic schedules and planned meetings.
He said Araghchi subsequently left the United States according to his previously arranged programme.
“As far as the information I have, the trip of the Iranian delegation to New York for the United Nations General Assembly proceeded normally,” Qashqavi said, adding that Washington had not interfered with the president’s or foreign minister’s programmes.
His comments add to an increasingly sharp dispute between Tehran and Washington over what happened as the Iranian delegation prepared to leave New York.
US officials have provided a different account.
Axios reported last week, citing a US official and another source familiar with the episode, that Rubio ordered the Iranian delegation to leave the United States after indirect diplomatic negotiations between Tehran and Washington reached a stalemate.
According to the US account, the US mission to the United Nations informed Iran’s mission on Monday evening that Araghchi and his delegation had to leave New York immediately.
One US official told Axios that the Iranian delegation had “overstayed their welcome” following the end of the main General Assembly meetings. The delegation left New York several hours later for Doha.
The Associated Press also reported, citing US officials, that Rubio had ordered Araghchi and his delegation to depart ahead of schedule after little progress was made in indirect discussions involving Iranian and Qatari officials.
Iran has disputed that account from the outset.
The Iranian mission to the United Nations said the delegation had departed according to an itinerary that had already been communicated to the US State Department on September 17, rejecting suggestions that Iranian officials had been expelled.
Qashqavi’s latest comments go further by directly addressing the separate allegation that Araghchi had considered or requested asylum in the United States.
No credible public evidence has emerged showing that Araghchi submitted an asylum request, and major reports detailing the dispute between Rubio and the Iranian delegation have focused on the alleged order to leave rather than any asylum application.
The controversy comes amid severe tensions between Washington and Tehran and stalled efforts to reach a broader agreement addressing the conflict, Iran’s nuclear programme and the Strait of Hormuz.
Araghchi had remained in New York after President Pezeshkian’s departure as Qatar attempted to mediate indirect negotiations between Iran and the United States. US officials said expectations of possible progress faded during the day before Rubio issued the order for the delegation to leave.
Tehran, however, maintains that Araghchi’s departure was planned and that reports portraying the Iranian delegation as having been thrown out of the country are politically motivated.
Qashqavi’s intervention on Monday represents one of Tehran’s clearest denials yet, rejecting both the suggestion that Araghchi sought asylum and the broader portrayal of his departure from New York as an extraordinary US action.
