NY Times Tours to Iran End

The New York Times is reportedly shutting down its journalist-guided luxury tours to Iran amid rising tensions there.

"We're suspending the Iran tours because of difficulties related to the issuance of visas for our experts," a Times spokeswoman told the New York Post.

Ira Stoll, a former managing editor of The Forward who had been calling on the Times to cancel the trips to the "terror-sponsoring" and "Israel-hating" country, first reported the tour's end in his blog.

The Trump administration earlier this month restored all Iran sanctions in the wake of the U.S. decision to pull out of the multinational Iran nuclear deal. The Times spokesman declined to comment on whether the tour's end was related.

A 12-day Iran trip scheduled to leave Saturday went ahead as planned.

"The one in November is going to be the last one for the foreseeable future," a person answering the "Times Journey" help line told the Post.

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