<span style="color: #222222;">Iran today slammed the United States for what it called an inhumane decision to bar its foreign minister, who was attending the UN summit meetings in New York, from visiting a hospitalised Iranian diplomat in the city.<br />'' <br />'' US authorities were not allowing Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to visit UN ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi who was undergoing cancer treatment in a New York hospital.<br />'' <br />'' In July, the US restricted Zarif's movement to just six blocks in New York. The US State Department said it would allow the hospital visit request only if Iran released one of several US citizens it has currently wrongfully detained.<br />'' <br />'' The official IRNA news agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi as saying that the US had taken humanitarian issues what called hostage for political causes.<br />'' <br />''<br />''The spat comes amid heightened tension between Tehran and Washington following US President Donald Trump's decision over a year ago to unilaterally pull out of the nuclear deal with Iran.</span>