Iran yesterday rejected a US decision to deny a visa for its newly-appointed Ambassador to the United Nations, pledging to take up the case directly with the world body in a dispute that has reopened old wounds dating to the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The US, which hosts the United Nations, said Iran’s candidate Hamid Abutalebi was unacceptable given his role in a 444-day crisis in which radical Iranian students stormed the US embassy in Tehran and took 52 Americans hostage.

President Barack Obama had come under strong domestic pressure not to allow Abutalebi into the US to take up his position in New York, raising concerns that the dispute would disrupt delicate negotiations between Tehran and six world powers including Washington over Iran’s nuclear programme.

“We have no replacement for Mr Abutalebi and we will pursue the matter via legal mechanisms envisioned at the United Nations,” Abbas Araghchi, a senior Foreign Ministry official, was quoted by Iran’s official IRNA news agency as saying.

“Based on an agreement with the United Nations, America is bound to act according to its international commitments,” Araghchi said, as quoted by IRNA. The UN said it had no comment at this time on the US decision.

American law allows the Washington government to bar UN diplomats who are considered national security threats. But Obama’s potentially precedent-setting step could open the US to criticism that it is wielding its position as host nation to improperly exert political influence.

Araghchi is also a top negotiator in Iran’s talks with big powers on defusing a stand-off over its disputed nuclear activity. Iran has said Washington’s rejection of Abutalebi will not affect the talks, whose next round is set for May 13.

Abutalebi says he served solely as a periodic translator for the Islamist students who seized the US embassy hostages, and he has since evolved into a moderate figure favouring, like President Hassan Rouhani, a thaw in Iran’s ties with the West.

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