Mayor Zohran Mamdani acknowledged reports on Friday that New York City\u2019s commissioner for international affairs had arranged to meet with Iran\u2019s ambassador to the United Nations, but said the arrangement was \u201cmade in error\u201d and the meeting had not taken place.<\/p>\n
The proposed meeting involving the commissioner, Ana Mar\u00eda Archila, and the ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, was first reported in City Journal<\/a>, a publication of the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank.<\/p>\n Mr. Mamdani said at an unrelated news conference that he had not been aware of the proposed meeting until the administration received a press inquiry about it. The proposal \u201cwas a request that came in\u201d to the Mayor\u2019s Office for International Affairs, he said, \u201cnot one that originated from the office.\u201d City Hall is working on a new protocol for managing meeting requests, he said.<\/p>\n The subject of the proposed meeting was not clear. Ms. Archila\u2019s office was reprimanded over the incident, according to a person familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n The work of the international affairs office, Mr. Mamdani said at the news conference, includes ensuring that \u201cas we are a city of the world, that we are also there to meet with leaders from across the world.\u201d But, he added, \u201cthe focus is always on our city.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms. Archila\u2019s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday. Iran\u2019s mission to the United Nations declined to comment.<\/p>\n The timing of the revelation was, to say the least, uncomfortable for Mr. Mamdani\u2019s administration.<\/p>\n The United States has ramped up attacks in its war with Iran<\/a> in recent days, as a week of funeral ceremonies for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei concluded. Iran said it had responded by firing at U.S. military bases in Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait.<\/p>\n The State Department said in a statement on Friday that it was \u201cunconscionable\u201d that a New York City official would consider meeting with the Iranian ambassador, and that the department appreciated that the meeting had been canceled.<\/p>\n City Journal reported that the meeting had been called off after the State Department intervened. Another person familiar with the matter disputed that assertion on Friday evening, saying that it had been canceled because of a scheduling conflict, but declined to provide further details.<\/p>\n Soon after President Trump was elected to a second term in November 2024, Ambassador Iravani met in New York with Elon Musk<\/a>, the tech billionaire who was then a top adviser to Mr. Trump. Two Iranian officials said at the time that the two men discussed how to defuse tensions between the United States and Iran.<\/p>\n