WASHINGTON (AFP) — Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki made a rare stop in Washington on Wednesday to visit the Iran interests section at the Pakistani embassy.

The U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told AFP that Mottaki met with nobody in Washington from the State Department or the White House's National Security Council (NSC).
Mottaki's visit, which was authorized by Washington, is highly unusual as the two countries have not held diplomatic ties for three decades. It comes amid efforts by President Barack Obama's administration to engage with Iran.
Calling it “a significant gesture,” analyst Trita Parsi believed it was the first time in a decade that Washington had granted a request by an Iranian foreign minister to visit a U.S. city outside the United Nations in New York.
But Philip Crowley, the State Department's assistant secretary of state for public affairs, played down any suggestion that the U.S. decision to grant Mottaki's request amounted to a gesture to Iran by the new administration.
“I wouldn't read too much into this. It was a straightforward request, and we granted it,” Crowley told reporters.
The visit came on the eve of talks in Geneva between Iran, the United States and five other powers about Tehran's nuclear program.
The Pakistani embassy represents Iran's interests in Washington in the absence of diplomatic relations, which were cut at the time of the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Switzerland represents U.S. interests in Iran.-