Iran, Afghan Taliban chief assail US travel ban

Tehran and the Afghan Taliban chief denounced on Saturday the US travel ban on the citizens of 12 mostly Middle Eastern and African countries, saying Washington’s decision was a sign of a “racist mentality”.

US President Donald Trump signed on Wednesday an executive order reviving sweeping restrictions that echo his first-term travel ban, justified on national security grounds following a firebomb attack at a pro-Israel rally in Colorado.

Alireza Hashemi-Raja, the foreign ministry’s director general for the affairs of Iranians abroad, called the measure, which takes effect June 9, “a clear sign of the dominance of a supremacist and racist mentality among American policymakers”.

The decision “indicates the deep hostility of American decision-makers towards the Iranian and Muslim people”, he added in a statement released by the ministry.

Apart from Iran, the US ban targets nationals of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. A partial ban was imposed on travellers from seven other countries.

Hashemi-Raja said the policy “violates fundamental principles of international law” and deprives “hundreds of millions of people of the right to travel based solely on their nationality or religion”.

The foreign ministry official said that the ban was discriminatory and would “entail international responsibility for the US government”, without elaborating.

Iran and the US severed diplomatic ties shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and relations have remained deeply strained since.

The United States is home to the largest Iranian community outside Iran.

According to figures from Tehran’s foreign ministry, in 2020, there were some 1.5 million Iranians in the US.

Trump’s executive order came days after Sunday’s attack at the Colorado rally, in which authorities said more than a dozen people were hurt. The suspect is an Egyptian man who had overstayed a tourist visa.

Separately, the Afghan Taliban’s supreme leader, Sheikh Hibatullah Akhundzada, used his Eid sermon in southern Kandahar to slam the US travel ban and decision to veto a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire and unrestricted humanitarian access in Gaza.

Afghan government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the Taliban leader led Eid prayers at Eidgah in Kandahar with thousands attending the congregation.

Mujahid posted Akhundzada’s address on his official X account.

“Fourteen countries supported the resolution calling for a ceasefire in Palestine but the oppressive America, which had committed atrocities here in Afghanistan, is now committing atrocities in Palestine. Palestinian Muslims are victims of oppression. America is supporting Israel.”

He regretted that some people were happy with friendship with the US and considered it success for themselves. “The US is the biggest oppressor. America is the murderer of all Muslims in Palestine,” the Taliban leader said.

He said peace was established in Afghanistan.

“Those who followed the path of jihad have succeeded … No one was expecting Muslims would be victorious in Afghanistan. Americans would be humiliated in the world as they were in Afghanistan,” he claimed.

“Israel is oppressing Palestinians with the backing of America, and if America is not their, then Israel does not have that much power”

The Taliban leader defended a complete ban on opium cultivation in Afghanistan and said he had not taken the decision to get anything from the world. “But this decision had been taken in accordance with Islamic Sharia,” Akhundzada said.