U.S. would find Iran UN candidate 'extremely troubling'
The US State Department has expressed concern over Iran's nominee for the new UN ambassador Hamid Aboutalebi, who payed a role in the US Iran hostage crisis.
The State Department said Wednesday that it has notified Iran that it would have "serious concerns" about the choice of Hamid Aboutalebi to be Iran's next UN envoy.
"We think this nomination would be extremely troubling,” State Department deputy spokesperson Marie Harf told journalists at the State Department press briefing Wednesday, Reuters reported.
“We are taking a close look at the case now and we have raised our serious concerns about this possible nomination with the government of Iran," Harf said.
Aboutalebi, a career Iranian diplomat close to Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, told Iranian media in interviews last month that he had been summoned on occasion to serve as a translator during the 1979 US Iran hostage crisis, but had otherwise not been involved.
