that Aboutalebi was one of the student radicals involved in the Iran hostage crisis, in which 52 Americans, including diplomats from the US embassy in Tehran, were held captive from 1979 to 1980.

[13] Ebrahim Asgharzadeh, a leading member of the core group who organized and led the embassy takeover, told BBC Persian that Aboutalebi's involvement was peripheral.

[12] Due to the claims, Aboutalebi's appointment as ambassador to the UN was opposed by numerous U.S. lawmakers and diplomats, some of whom asked the US Department of State to deny his application for a visa.

According to the New York Times: "By not explicitly rejecting the visa application, the White House appeared to be leaving Iran a way to resolve the standoff".

[20] It is speculated [21] that his resignation from his office in June 2020 is related to his views about the principles of negotiation in foreign policy as suggested by a series of tweets [22] in his official Twitter account.