Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif Denied Free Movement in US

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has been barred from travelling around the United States, his deputy said on Saturday.

The United States imposed a travel ban and assets freeze on Zarif in July as part of its "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran but granted him a visa for the trip to the UN General Assembly in September.

Zarif has been in New York since Friday. On Saturday, he was interviewed by CBS’s Washington-based "Face the Nation" public affairs program at the Iranian mission to the United Nations.

"Since his US visa doesn't allow him to go to the studio, the studio came to Iran Mission in NY," the Iranian deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, tweeted.

Washington said it would decide whether to grant Zarif travel visas on a case-by-case basis. During his trip to New York in July, he was only allowed to travel between John F. Kennedy airport, the UN headquarters, his country's UN mission and the residence of the Iranian envoy.