Some Iranian students may seek two-year, multiple-entry US visas, the State Department said on Friday, giving them greater freedom to travel to the United States in a gesture to improve people-to-people ties. The step is the latest in a series by US President Barack Obama’s administration to reach out to the Iranian people and, in particular, to young Iranians despite the long enmity between the two countries. Students from Iran, which the United States accuses of seeking nuclear weapons, sponsoring terrorism and brutally repressing its people, previously were eligible only for three-month, single-entry visas.
The new guidelines apply to Iranians and their dependents applying to study in “nonsensitive, nontechnical fields” — those that would not contribute to Iran’s nuclear, missile or other weapons-related activities, a US official said. Under the revised policy, the visas could be valid for two years and allow Iranian students to come and go as often as they wished in that period without applying for a new visa. Whether they may actually enter the United States and exactly how long they may stay is decided by immigration officers at their port of entry, US officials said.
In a video address, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made clear the US gesture aimed to reach out to young Iranians, many of whom turned out in mass protests against the disputed 2009 reelection of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Those protests, the biggest challenge to the Islamic state since the 1979 revolution that ended the authoritarian rule of the Shah of Iran, were crushed by Iranian security forces who jailed scores of demonstrators.