The U.S. Department of State on Sept. 22 barred diplomats from Iran from visiting stores such as Costco, Sam’s Club, and BJ’s Wholesale Club while in the United States to attend the U.N. General Assembly in New York City.
The State Department issued a statement indicating that Iranian diplomats working at the U.N. headquarters would not be able to access “wholesale club stores and luxury goods” while in the country. The Iranian officials would also be restricted in their movements through the United States, with them being limited to “areas strictly necessary to transit to and from the UN headquarters district to conduct their official UN business.”
“We will not allow the Iranian regime to allow its clerical elites to have a shopping spree in New York while the Iranian people endure poverty, crumbling infrastructure, and dire shortages of water and electricity,” Thomas Pigott, a Department of State spokesperson, said in a statement. “The United States will not allow the Iranian regime to use [U.N. General Assembly] as an excuse to travel freely in New York to promote its terrorist agenda.”
The Department of State’s notice was published in the Federal Register on Sept. 23.
Any person who violates the prohibition, including U.S. citizens who give Iranian diplomats any goods from these establishments, may be subject to legal action.
Iran does not have diplomatic relations with the United States, and ordinarily, no Iranian diplomats are present in the country. However, the United States, as the host of the U.N., is legally obligated to allow the transit and limited residence of Iranian diplomats for U.N. business.
Historically, this has included visits to the United States by Iranian presidents such as Hassan Rouhani and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to address the annual session of the U.N. General Assembly, held each September.
The goods sold at wholesale stores in the United States cannot ordinarily be imported into Iran because of U.S. sanctions on that country. Purchases of the goods in the United States, and their subsequent transfer back to Iran via diplomatic pouch, is a method of circumventing that prohibition.
The permanent diplomatic staff of Iran in New York—as with other countries without U.S. diplomatic relations, such as North Korea—is often severely restricted in its activities while in the United States. Iranian diplomats are not allowed to travel beyond a 25-mile radius of U.N. headquarters and their personal residences without special permission from the U.S. government.
By Arjun Singh
