The New York Times said Friday it is ending a series of journalist-guided luxury trips to Iran for its readers as global political tensions continue to escalate.
“We’re suspending the Iran tours because of difficulties related to the issuance of visas for our experts,” said a NYT spokeswoman.
She declined to comment on whether it was also in reaction to the Trump administration’s tightening of sanctions as it pulls the US out of the Iran nuclear deal.
The Times, which has helped to offset its print-ad slump with its pricey “Times Journeys” to far-off lands, has a 12-day Iran trip scheduled to leave Nov. 10.
That trip apparently is still going ahead as planned. The Times Journey web site lists it for a price starting at $7,895.
“We are not offering it in 2019,” said a person answering the Times Journey help line. “The one in November is going to be the last one for the foreseeable future,” she said.
The Times earlier said it had cancelled the Times Journeys to Saudi Arabia in reaction to the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for the Washington Post who was killed inside the Saudia Arabian consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.
Ira Stoll, a former managing editor of The Forward writing a blog the Algemeiner site, had been calling on the Times to cancel the trips to Iran which he called a “terror-sponsoring” and “ Israel-hating” country.
Stoll was the first to report on that the tours to Iran, which had been offered since 2014, were dropped from the 2019 catalog which lists tours to Antarctica, China, Japan and Galapagos Islands.