Two Iranian diplomats who stayed behind in New York after Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered the country’s entire United Nations delegation out of the United States have now been expelled.
The U.N. General Assembly session wrapped up on September 28, but a small Iranian delegation lingered, reportedly to continue negotiations. Rubio said the group had “overstayed their welcome” and ordered all of them to leave the country by Monday.
Two diplomats did not comply. The State Department told Iran’s mission to the U.N. that it knew the pair had stayed behind and demanded their immediate departure.
“Secretary Rubio means business. Two more members of the Iranian delegation were found still in New York long after the UN General Assembly had passed. They have now been kicked out of the country,” a U.S. official told Fox News Digital.
One diplomat left Friday night. The other departed Saturday morning.
President Donald Trump addressed Iran’s leadership vacuum separately on Friday night at a campaign rally in Mobile, Alabama, mocking the regime’s inability to settle on who speaks for it.
“They lost one set of leaders. Then they lost another set of leaders. Then they lost half of a third set, and they had a little runoff for who wants to be president and there were no participants. Everyone said, ‘I don’t, I don’t want to be,'” Trump told the crowd.
“And it’s part of our problem. I don’t know who the hell to deal with. There’s nobody to deal with. Nobody wants to be president, I’d say ‘Who do I speak to in Iran?’ They’re not nobody around. Knock, knock. Nobody home,” Trump added.
The expulsions make clear the administration intends to enforce its deadlines on Iranian officials present on U.S. soil, regardless of how the diplomats interpreted their window to stay.
