Washington says it has removed two Iranian UN delegates from the country

A US official said on Saturday that two members of Iran's delegation to the UN General Assembly had been removed from the United States, after Secretary of State Marco Rubio had already told the delegation to leave.

The official, speaking to Axios, described the two as having been "kicked out" and said Rubio "means business" on the earlier demand. The State Department did not, in the public account, name the two diplomats or the flight they were put on. A removal from the host country of the United Nations is a host-state act. It is not a vote of the General Assembly.

The United States is the host of UN headquarters under the 1947 headquarters agreement. That agreement obliges Washington to allow entry for delegates travelling on UN business, with a security exception the host has used before. Saturday's removals sit inside that exception only if the department is prepared to say the two were a security case. The official's comment did not use that word. It used the secretary's earlier order.

Iran's delegation had been in New York for the General Assembly session that ran through the last week of September. Rubio had demanded that the delegation leave. Two members remaining into the weekend, and then being removed, is the gap between an order and an escort. The rest of the delegation's status was not in the official's comment.

The timing sits inside the war that began on 28 February, when the United States and Israel struck Iran. Tehran's parliament speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, said on Sunday that the Strait of Hormuz stays shut until seven conditions in the June memorandum are met. A host-state removal does not open the strait. It does tell Tehran that the people who speak for it in New York can be put on a plane.

Diplomats ejected under the headquarters agreement can lose the visa that let them into the session. They can also be listed for the next one. Iran can answer at the credentials committee, in a letter to the secretary-general, or by restricting American staff in Tehran. None of those answers was in Saturday's report.

The number is two. Not the ambassador, on the account given, and not the whole mission. A partial removal is a message aimed at named people and at the rest of the delegation watching them go. Without the names, the public record is the count, the body they belonged to, and the secretary who had demanded they leave.

UN sessions produce a stack of these disputes. What is specific to Saturday is the war context and the official's line that the secretary meant the earlier demand. The General Assembly hall is still open. Two of Iran's seats in the delegation, on this account, are not.