Republicans push Biden to deny Raisi’s visa request
President Ebrahim Raisi’s planned address to the UN General Assembly comes weeks after the Department of Justice charged an Iranian national with plotting to kill former US official John Bolton.
Of all the foreign heads of state set to descend on New York for next month’s UN General Assembly, the expected visit of Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, might prove the thorniest for the Biden administration as it works to reenter a landmark nuclear agreement with the Islamic Republic.
An Iranian government spokesperson said this month that Raisi would seek an entry visa to attend the annual gathering of world leaders, which runs Sept. 13-27. The former hard-line judge and close ally to Iran’s supreme leader was elected president in June 2021, but did not attend last year’s UN summit in person due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Raisi would not be the first Iranian president to address the 193-member body in New York, but he would be the first to do so while under US sanctions.
In November 2019, the Trump administration sanctioned Raisi and other members of the supreme leader’s inner circle for “advancing the regime’s domestic and foreign oppression.”
