As calls to designate the IRGC grow, US lobbyists are pushing to ban Iran's foreign minister and delegation from the upcoming United Nations meeting on the Gaza war.
Among those leading the calls is Mark Wallace, the CEO of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), who said, “April 18 will mark the 41st anniversary of Hezbollah’s bombing of the US Embassy in Lebanon. Hossein Amir-Abdollahian’s presence on US soil would be an outrageous insult to the victims and their families,” in a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
According to reports, Amir-Abdollahian is scheduled to travel to the US to attend a United Nations meeting on the Gaza conflict on April 18, coinciding with the anniversary of the 1983 US Embassy bombing in Beirut which claimed the lives of 63 people, including 17 Americans.
Citing Amir-Abdollahian’s repeated meetings with Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah chief, Hassan Nasrallah, the UANI ambassador also pointed to his complicity in the October 7 onslaught, which marked the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, sparking the current Gaza war. According to the Wall Street Journal, the IRGC directly helped Hamas devise the plan for the October 7 attack.
Wallace also referred to the brutal repression of dissent in Iran as another reason Washington should refrain from issuing visas for Iran’s top diplomat and delegation. “While Amir-Abdollahian was in New York in January 2024, the regime executed Mohammad Ghobadlou, a 23-year-old Iranian protester - perhaps just as Amir-Abdollahian was ordering room service from his penthouse suite at the Millennium Hilton Hotel at UN Plaza," he said.
Ghobadlou was arrested during the 2022 nationwide protests and was executed in January on the charge of killing a policeman.
Back in March, 27 members of the House of Representatives called on the Biden administration to ban the entry of Iranian officials to the US but Washington continues to allow the regime entry to high level meetings of global leaders in spite of its being labeled as the world's leading state sponsor of terror according to the latest US reports.