Iran's consulate in Washington remains open even as the US and Israel wage war against the country.
Though Iran has not had an embassy in the US capital city since 1979, it has continued to operate a consulate, officially known as the Embassy of Pakistan's Interest Section of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
This week, a pop-up message appeared on the Iranian consulate's website addressing the situation.
“Despite the current conditions, this mission remains operational and ready to provide services to our dear compatriots,” the bulletin read, adding that certain requests to consulate staffers may take longer than others.
In recent years, demonstrators supporting change in Iran have gathered outside the building, which is also home to Mexico's consulate.
An Iranian American who has periodic contact with the consulate told The National that Iranian flags had been taken down inside the office. The National could not independently verify this and the consulate did not respond to requests for comment.
The removal of Iranian flags had been requested by several people with relatives who had fled following the toppling of the last shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
“The second thing we did was that we asked them to get rid of the Ayatollah [Ali Khamenei] pictures, which they didn't do and we said, 'That's fine, at least you're doing one of the two requests,'” the Iranian American said. If the current regime falls, they added that they planned to try to transfer several historical items to Iran's former embassy building in Washington.
“We hope everybody and everything will be transferred to the different building, which is much nicer than this one.”
That building, on Massachusetts Avenue, has been abandoned since 1979.
The US has no embassy in Iran, but Switzerland's Foreign Interests Section in Tehran operates as a US consulate.
Though tensions have persisted between the US and Iran for decades, more members of the Iranian diaspora live in America than anywhere else outside Iran.
According to the US State Department, 6,261 immigrant visas were issued to Iranians in 2024.
