The commissioner of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Office of International Affairs, Ana Maria Archila, was scheduled to meet with an Iranian official before the US State Department intervened, according to a City Journal report on Thursday.
According to the report, Archila was scheduled to meet with Iran’s representative to the United Nations, Amir-Saeid Iravani, on Tuesday with two other senior officials from the Mayor’s Office for International Affairs.
Archila reportedly did not inform the US State Department or Mamdani of the meeting in advance.
A State Department official told City Journal that, upon learning about the meeting, the State Department met with the Mamdani administration to clarify that it was unacceptable. Following the State Department visit, Archila was reportedly reprimanded and ordered to cancel the meeting.
A spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office for International Affairs told City Journal that Archila’s meeting with the Iranian official “did not and will not take place.”
Mamdani administration reportedly using Office for International Affairs to advance political agenda
According to City Journal, the meeting is not the first instance of Archila or the Mamdani administration using city resources to advance agendas unrelated to New York City.
In April, according to the report, a message was sent to staff in the Mayor’s Office for International Affairs asking them to prioritize engagements with foreign diplomats, in part, based on whether or not the officials were “in political alignment/leftist.”
The Mayor’s Office for International Affairs, City Journal claimed, is not intended to be used to shape foreign policy and is instead meant to focus on bringing foreign businesses to the city and supporting the city’s diplomatic community regardless of political leanings.