Iran to bar American travellers following Trump's Muslim ban

Iran will ban Americans from entering the country in response to President Donald Trump's "insulting" order restricting arrivals from Iran and six other Muslim-majority countries, the foreign ministry said on Saturday.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran... has decided to respond in kind after the insulting decision of the United States concerning Iranian nationals", the ministry said in a statement carried by state television.

It comes after Trump signed a sweeping executive order on Friday to suspend refugee arrivals and effectively ban passport holders from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen entering the US.

Iran's foreign ministry called the decision "illegal, illogical and contrary to international rules".

It said its own ban on US nationals would continue until Washington lifted its own measure.

It said it had ordered Iranian diplomatic missions to help Iranians who had been "prevented from returning to their homes and places of work and study" in the US.

Travel agents in Tehran said that foreign airlines had begun barring Iranians from US-bound flights.

Austria has also shut down a US Congress-backed programme that allowed non-Muslim Iranians to migrate to America.

Earlier in the day, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani criticised his US counterpart without naming him, saying now was "not the time to build walls between nations".