The US State Department has sent out then deleted a tweet congratulating an Oscar win by director Asghar Farhadi, who criticised President Donald Trump's travel ban as "inhumane".
Its official Persian-language Twitter account, @USAdarFarsi, posted the tweet to the Iranian people and Farhadi, director of The Salesman, after the movie won an Oscar for best foreign-language film on Sunday.
Farhadi boycotted the ceremony to protest Trump's January executive order that temporarily banned entry to the US by Iranians and citizens of six other mostly Muslim countries.
Though the ban was blocked by federal courts, the administration is working on a new order.
Though Farhadi was not at Sunday's ceremony, the filmmaker still made a statement through engineer Anousheh Ansari, the first female space tourist.
"My absence is out of respect for the people of my country and those of other six nations whom have been disrespected by the inhumane law that bans entry of immigrants to the US," Ansari said, reading from Farhadi's statement.
According to screenshots on Twitter, the @USAdarFarsi account posted a message about 10pm PST (5pm on Monday AEDT), congratulating Farhadi on the award, which was Iran's second Oscar victory (its first victory, A Separation, was also directed by Farhadi).
The tweet was then deleted, although it is unclear exactly when.
"A congratulatory tweet was posted," a State Department spokeswoman told Reuters.
"We later removed the post to avoid any misperception that the (US government) endorsed the comments made in the acceptance speech."
A second official said the decision to delete the tweet was made within the department.
