Pompeo Confines Visiting Iran Foreign Minister Zarif To Within Six Blocks Of UN Mission

Amid the ongoing tensions between Iran and the U.S., the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif warned Washington not to play with fire.

Last week, both countries had a verbal duel over Tehran’s nuclear program. Iran has crossed the 3.67 percent limit set in a nuclear deal it had with the United States and some European countries, and also surpassed the 300 kilogram limit on enriched uranium reserves. President Trump had pulled the U.S. out of the deal.

“I think the United States is playing with fire,” Zarif told NBC News. “But it can be reversed within hours,” he said referring to the nuclear deal breaches. “We are not about to develop nuclear weapons. Had we wanted to develop nuclear weapons, we would have been able to do it a long time ago,” he explained.

The Iranian minister’s comments come after the U.S. placed ‘unusually harsh restrictions’ on his movements during a visit to the United Nations. According to CGTN, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued him a visa but forbade him from moving beyond six blocks of Iran’s UN mission in Midtown Manhattan. Pompeo told the Washington Post that U.S. diplomats don’t roam around Tehran. “We don’t see any reason for Iranian diplomats to roam freely around New York City, either,” he said.

Pompeo further said that Zarif, who is scheduled to speak at the UN Economic and Social Council on Wednesday, uses the freedoms of the United States to come here and spread malign propaganda.

However, the UN expressed concerns about the Iranian diplomat’s travel restrictions. Farhan Haq, the organization's spokesman. said the UN Secretariat was in contact with the U.S. and Iranian missions. NNA said the U.S. generally bars diplomats of hostile countries from traveling outside a 40-kilometer radius of New York’s Columbus Circle.

Since the 1980s, the U.S. and Iran have had no diplomatic relations after the Islamic revolution toppled the West-back Shah from power in 1979.