Mohammad al-Abdullah, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Abu Dhabi, said officials from the Iranian embassy in the UAE asked the Arabic and English-language Al Jazeera teams to leave the hall ahead of the press conference.
A member of the Iranian delegation said the ban was related to an Al Jazeera program that was deemed insulting to Iraq's Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani.
Al Jazeera said it regretted Iran's decision, voicing hope it would not lead to a complete ban on its activities in the country, and stressed its policy of "respecting religious and public figures."
The Iranian Parliament recently banned al-Jazeera reporters until the network agrees to apologize for a perceived insult its news show "Without Borders" made against Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
The program broadcast an interview with Sheikh Jawad al-Khalsi, a Shiite cleric with strong ties with the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars, who has been sharply critical of Sistani and other Shi'ite leaders' relationships with the Americans.
Last week, the Iraqi Parliament decided to file a suit against al-Jazeera for the insults against Sistani, as MP Khalaf al-Alyan from the Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front (IAF) noted, "All religious clerics in Iraq are sacred and their sanctity should not be violated."
