WASHINGTON — Under pressure from outraged lawmakers, the Obama administration on Wednesday objected to Iran naming an ambassador to the United Nations who took part in the 1979-81 hostage crisis at the American Embassy in Tehran.
“We think this nomination would be extremely troubling,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said of Iran’s new UN ambassador, Hamid Aboutalebi. “We . . . have raised our serious concerns about this possible nomination with the government of Iran.”
Bronx Rep. Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Wednesday: “If he participated [in holding the hostages], we should find a way of barring him from coming to the country.”
A day earlier, Sen. Charles Schumer put President Obama on the spot by demanding that Aboutalebi be denied an entry visa.
The move by Iran tests the Obama administration amid its deal-making to stop the Islamic republic from building nuclear weapons.