Iran foreign minister says U.S. ban targets ‘grandmothers’

PanARMENIAN.Net - Iran’s foreign minister has denounced the partial reinstatement of President Donald Trump’s travel ban as a “truly shameful exhibition of blind hostility to all Iranians” — and a measure that will prevent Iranian grandmothers from seeing their grandchildren in America, The Associated Press reports.

Friday, June 30’s remarks by Mohammad Javad Zarif came after the Trump administration set criteria for visa applicants from the six Muslim-majority nations and all refugees that require a “close” family or business tie to the United States.

The guidelines sent to U.S. embassies and consulates initially said applicants must prove a relationship with a parent, spouse, child, adult son or daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law or sibling in the U.S. Later, the State Department and the Homeland Security Department added “fiancé” to that definition of “close familial relationship” — but not grandparents or grandchildren.

Zarif, who has persistently assailed the travel ban, wrote on his Twitter account that the “U.S. now bans Iranian grandmothers from seeing their grandchildren, in a truly shameful exhibition of blind hostility to all Iranians.”