President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian are set to converge on New York City for the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) this week, setting up what former White House officials describe as a “dramatic” diplomatic moment, with Tehran’s delegation effectively “captive” under U.S. restrictions amid heightened Middle East tensions.
Pezeshkian, for one, is scheduled to address the assembly on Wednesday, Reuters and Iran’s semi-official news agency, Mehr, reported Sunday, with Trump at the rostrum on Tuesday.
“The choreography here is going to make for a fairly dramatic moment,” Theo Wold, former acting assistant attorney general and White House domestic policy advisor, told Fox News Digital.
“For the Iranians, the limitation is going to be that there’s going to be less access to the international press and less ability for them to essentially poke the Trump administration in the eye,” Wold added before noting that it is “pretty sensible to allow them to participate in the international forum and to discuss whatever issues they think are pertinent to their regime and then tell them to go home.”
The high-profile gathering also comes as Trump weighs renewed strikes on Iran amid the almost seven-month war. Tehran, meanwhile, has set seven conditions for talks with Washington, according to Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei.
Iran also warned on Sunday against any big new attack by the United States and its allies, saying it had information such a move was being prepared, Reuters reported.
While the U.S. approved visas for Iran’s delegation earlier this week, including Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, the State Department has placed strict limits on Iranian movements while in Manhattan.
As the host country under a 1947 U.N. agreement, the United States generally must facilitate the entry and transit of foreign representatives traveling to U.N. headquarters, including officials from adversarial nations.
“While ordinary Iranians endure brutal repression, water and electricity shortages, and soaring inflation, the regime’s officials want to go on shopping sprees in New York. Not on our watch,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said on X.
For Washington, Wold said the U.S. is not obligated to give them unrestricted access beyond diplomatic responsibilities.
“Here, the delegation will be restricted to their accommodation in New York City and the U.N. headquarters there in Manhattan,” Wold clarified.
He characterized the move by Washington as a way of telling the delegation it could participate in official discussions but not “go and buy a bunch of microwaves or a small car at Costco or a dealership in the greater New York area.”
“Some of the restrictions fully recognize that when Iran comes to New York for UNGA, really it’s about them lining their pockets and going on shopping sprees to get household appliances and Rolex watches,” Wold said. “They’re not going to be going on shopping sprees. They’re certainly not going to be hitting up Michelin-starred restaurants in greater Manhattan.
“They also go to Sam’s Club and Walmart and Costco. And that was one of the specific prohibitions issued by the State Department this week: to contact those big-box retailers that require a basic membership and say, ‘You’re not to transact or do any business with Iranians when they arrive, and you’re to notify us when they do.’”
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Despite the restrictions, Wold said UNGA gives Washington the opportunity it has “wanted for quite some time to have a large enough audience, and a sort of captive Iranian delegation” to make some of the essential points for why the administration pursued the actions it did against the Iranian regime.
Iranian state media also reported Sept. 19 that Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said New York held “absolutely no charm” for the Iranian delegation.
Baghaei, Mehr News Agency reported, went on to accuse the U.S. of using every tool to block the delegation’s participation, asserting that Iran’s attendance is a legal right rather than a favor.
Wold went on to criticize the U.N. for hosting state representatives hostile to American interests while raising security concerns.
“It’s going to be one of those things that’s fairly perplexing to most Americans,” Wold said. “How is it that the representatives of what we have long identified as a hostile regime, but now one that we’re actually engaged in combat operations against, one that has killed American service members, why is it that their diplomats get to come to the United Nations and exchange niceties with other kleptocrats or some of their other allies on the international scene?”
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Wold also added that the United Nations wants to “lecture us about international climate change or the need to trans children, but the other is happy to sort of serve as a forum for obvious violators of human rights and obvious regimes that are contrary to any number of internationally agreed-upon protocols.”
Amid the hostility between Washington and Tehran, Wold said the gathering could also provide an opening for diplomacy. Trump is also slated to hold bilateral and sideline meetings with leaders from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to discuss regional security and the Strait of Hormuz.
“There’s the hope that there’ll be an opportunity for real discussion,” Wold said of UNGA. “Everyone’s hope, especially from State Department leadership, is that there’ll be an opportunity to have a fulsome, sort of meaningful discussion with the Iranians, freed from some of the theatrics the Iranians have engaged in.
“There’s a hope that there’ll be an opportunity for closed-door private discussions between the United States and Iranians and really try to hammer out some kind of agreement about what a cessation of hostilities will look like.”
Wold expressed confidence in Washington’s posture heading into the summit.
“The president is best equipped for these moments. This is really where he sort of shines as a natural leader,” he said. “He’s not one to bend or to break. It’s a precarious time for President Trump, but I have no doubt at all that he’ll rise to the moment.”
