Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered Iran’s UN delegation to leave the U.S. after talks stalled, with officials saying the delegates overstayed their welcome.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio directed Iran’s United Nations team to leave the United States right away once high-level meetings wrapped up and diplomacy went nowhere.
The Hill reported that the order came Monday, after negotiations between Washington and Tehran stalled and patience ran out on the American side. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his group left very early Tuesday.
Associated Press reporting, citing two officials familiar with the order, said Rubio concluded the delegates had “overstayed their welcome” and should depart once the major meetings had ended. NewsNation, The Hill’s broadcast partner, later confirmed the order with the State Department on Thursday.
The Iranian side pushed back hard. Tehran’s delegation denied any expulsion order and cast the U.S. account as empty noise.
In a statement on X, the Iranian delegation said it left New York on its own timetable.
The Iranian mission wrote:
“The Iranian delegation left New York on Monday evening, in accordance with the schedule that had also been communicated to the U.S. Department of State in advance on September 17,”
It added:
“Having achieved nothing, the State Department has resorted to propagating baseless and worthless news.”
Araghchi had planned to remain in New York until Wednesday for indirect talks with the United States through intermediaries. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian left the city the day after his speech to the U.N. General Assembly last week. The State Department had approved visas for the “core” Iranian U.N. delegation last month.
Those details matter. Visas were granted. A schedule was shared. Meetings concluded. Then Rubio drew a line.
Both Pezeshkian and President Trump have said they are looking for a deal. Progress has not followed. Indirect talks continued around the U.N. session, but the core issues did not move.
Trump rejected an Iranian peace proposal that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and put a ceasefire in place. Iranian government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said Wednesday that negotiators received an official U.S. response to that proposal. She offered no further detail.
Monday also marked seven months of the U.S.-Israeli conflict involving Iran, as described in the reporting. Some Republicans have pressed for relief from a U.S. naval blockade off Iranian ports. The broader standoff has kept pressure on energy markets and on political debate at home.
None of that softens the central fact: after the U.N. meetings ended, Rubio decided Iranian officials no longer belonged on U.S. soil under the terms they had been given.
While diplomats traded claims in New York, Iran’s security apparatus aimed a message straight at the U.S. electorate. Gen. Hossein Mohebbi, a spokesperson for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, released a letter to American voters earlier this week. The Times of Israel obtained it.
Mohebbi wrote:
“Although American politicians often win your votes through deception and false promises, as Trump did, you can change the makeup of the government if you apply the criteria for good leadership in choosing the people you vote into office,”
The pitch was plain. An arm of the Iranian regime urged U.S. voters to turn against Trump in order to shift American policy toward Tehran. That is not quiet diplomacy. It is an open attempt to shape U.S. politics from the outside while Iranian officials enjoyed access to New York under U.N. cover.
U.S. officials described a clear decision by Rubio. The Iranian mission described a routine Monday-evening departure set weeks earlier. Both sides agree the group left. They disagree on whether it left because Washington said so.
What is not in dispute in the available account is the sequence. Visas went out last month. Pezeshkian spoke and departed. Araghchi stayed for more talks. High-level meetings ended. Rubio lost patience Monday. The delegation was gone by very early Tuesday. NewsNation’s confirmation with the State Department followed on Thursday.
Iran called the American version “baseless and worthless.” American officials said the welcome had run out. Readers can weigh a regime that lectures U.S. voters through the Revolutionary Guard against a secretary of state who decided the visit was over.
Firm deadlines beat open-ended hospitality when the other side stalls, meddles, and denies the obvious.
