Iran Says Trump Sought Meeting With President 8 Times at U.N. Last Year
By RICK GLADSTONE
1 day ago
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© Chang W. Lee/The New York Times President Hassan Rouhani of Iran at the United Nations General Assembly last year.
Iran rejected eight requests from the United States for a meeting of their presidents at the United Nations General Assembly last year, a top Iranian official said Wednesday.
The assertion, if confirmed, suggests a previously undisclosed level of hostility among top Iranian officials toward President Trump, who has called Iran a nuclear threat, regional menace and global sponsor of terrorism. It would also suggest a previously unknown eagerness by the Trump administration for some kind of dialogue.
White House and State Department officials did not immediately respond to the Iranian assertion,
made by President Hassan Rouhani’s chief of staff, Mahmoud Vaezi, at a cabinet meeting reported in Iran’s state-run news media.
“Trump asked the Iranian delegation eight times to have a meeting with the president,” Mr. Vaezi said.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry previously said an American request for a Trump-Rouhani meeting on the sidelines of the General Assembly last September had been declined. Some Iranian state media have reported that Mr. Trump even invited Mr. Rouhani for dinner during that period.
But the number of times that Mr. Trump’s requests for a meeting were rebuffed had not been reported.
Since the last General Assembly session, Mr. Trump has moved aggressively to isolate Iran, withdrawing the United States from the 2015 nuclear agreement and restoring and strengthening sanctions against the country — defying the wishes of most other United Nations member states, including close American allies. Mr. Trump also has included Iran on a list of mostly Muslim countries subjected to a ban on travel to the United States.
Iranian officials have made no secret of their contempt for Mr. Trump. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has
sarcastically thanked him for showing America’s “true face.”
While Iranian officials had no warm feelings toward Mr. Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, top diplomats from the two countries collaborated closely on the nuclear accord, which eased sanctions in return for Iran’s verifiable pledges to never acquire nuclear weapons.
Mr. Obama and Mr. Rouhani held a
telephone conversation at the end of the 2013 General Assembly as the Iranian leader headed home, becoming the first leaders of their countries to speak in more than three decades and raising hopes at the time that the long-estranged relationship might improve.
Despite Mr. Trump’s antipathy toward Iran, there has always been some expectation that he would seek to engage with Iranian officials in a manner similar to how he has approached another adversary, North Korea. After a litany of bombastic threats and insults, Mr. Trump met with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, in Singapore last month.
North Korea appeared to be on the mind of Mr. Vaezi in his remarks on Wednesday, in which he seemed to suggest that Mr. Kim had made a mistake.
“We have a transparent policy and clear position with regard to our relations with the U.S.,” Mr. Vaezi said. “The characteristic of this establishment and people is that they will not yield to pressure. Trump should know that Iran and its people are different from North Korea and its people.”
Some political analysts suggested that Iran’s emphasis on its rejection of Mr. Trump reflected an absolute policy of no engagement enforced by Mr. Khamenei, who has the final word on such matters and is deeply distrustful of the West — especially the United States.
“The biggest obstacle to a U.S.-Iran dialogue is not Trump but Khamenei,” said Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow in the Middle East program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Trump flew halfway around the world to meet with Kim Jong-un. Khamenei hasn’t left Iran since 1989.”
Since Mr. Trump repudiated the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran two months ago, the risks that the accord will collapse have grown.
Iran has
sued the United States at the International Court of Justice in an attempt to annul the restored American sanctions, which drastically limit business dealings and investments.
Iranian officials also have threatened to renounce the nuclear accord if its European partners cannot find ways to bypass the American sanctions, which threaten penalties on all countries that engage economically with Iran.
The prospects for European success suffered a setback on Wednesday when the president of the European Investment Bank said its operations would be at risk by investing in Iran.
The president, Werner Hoyer, said that while he supported European efforts to preserve the nuclear deal, Iran was a country “where we cannot play an active role,” Reuters reported.
“We have to take note of the fact that we would risk the business model of the bank if we were active in Iran,” Mr. Hoyer was quoted by Reuters as saying.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...8-times-at-un-last-year/ar-AAAhBhL?li=BBnbcA1
Mr. Khameni should enlighten us about the corruption cases engulfing Iran. Here is an Article for all of youngsters in this Forum .The brotherly Arabs , including the Palestinians, supported Saddam at the detriment of Iran and Iranians.
Jordan, a made up of country of what was parts of Palestine, sold out other Palestinians. We are starving and taking nonsense about an issue that has nothing to do with Iran.
Hussein's Appeal for Iraq Wins Some Arab Support
By William Claiborne, Washington Post Foreign Service; Correspondent Stuart Auerbach contributed to this report from Manamaand Bahrain.
September 25, 1980
An appeal from Jordanian King Hussein for the Arab world to rally behind Iraq received some tentative responses today, further isolating Iran in the Middle East, but the Arabs appear to be far from unified on the issue.
The Jordanian monarch seized the initiative yesterday by calling for a unified Arab stand to assist Iraq in "defending its dear homeland and national soil." Jordan's ambassador in Baghdad delivered that message to President Saddam Hussein today.
While initial calls of support have involved rhetoric rather than promise of action, the Iraqi news agency said King Hassan II of Morocco told the Iraqi ambassador in Rabat that his country was "fully ready to dispatch military aid to Iraq."
While some Arab states invoked pan-Arab unity and calls for collective support of "Arab dignity," others called only for an end to hostilities so a common effort can be sustained against Israel on behalf of Palestinian nationalism.
On the more committed end of the scale, Tunisian Chedli Klibi, Arab-League secretary general, was quoted by Baghdad radio as telling the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council in a telephone message that he fully supports Iraq's steps for "liberation of its usurped territories."
However, the Tunisian press agency, Tunis Afrique Pesse, offered a more modest version of Klibi's message, saying that he had phoned several Arab governments, including Iraq, to discuss ways of ending the fighting and calling for a cease-fire.
North Yemeni leader Col. Ali Abdallah Salih was reported to have urged Iraqi President Saddam Hussein by telephone to defend Iraqi sovereignty in the Shat-Al-Arab region and preserve "Arab dignity."
Palestine Liberation Organization Central Committee secretary Muhammed Zuhdi Nashashibi declared revolutionary support for Iraq and "every Arab state" in regaining control of violated territory.
In a meeting with Iraqi Minister of Industry Tahir Tawiq, Nashashibi was quoted by Baghdad radio as denouncing the Iranian attacks and calling on Iran to recognize Iraq's rights of navigation in the Shatt-al-Arab waterway.
Nashashibi's statement was broadcast as PLO chief Yasser Arafat went to Baghdad in an effort to mediate the dispute. Arafat is said to be planning to go on to Tehran after meeting with Saddam Hussein.
Other Arab reaction to the conflict has been muted or sometimes evenhanded as evidenced by Libyan leader Col. Muammar Qaddafi's appeal to stop the fighting and save both sides' efforts for the "battle of honor" against Israel.
King Hussein's pronouncements on Iraq, which Jordan has both supported and benefited from financially in increasing dimensions, have been by far the most supportive of any Arab leader.
In a Cabinet meeting at which the conflict dominated the agenda, Hussein was reported to have told the ministers that in light of the Iranian "aggression" against "fraternal Iraq," Arab rights cannot be relinquished "whether in Palestine, Iraq or any other Arab state." Iran is not an Arab country.
He urged Iraq to "defend every particle of its dear Arab soil" and said Iran's "continual threats" in the Persian Gulf have served only to undermine a common stand against Israeli expansionism.
The monarchs stand was received by the Iraqi ambassador to Jordan, Seleh Hurani, with profuse gratitude. Hurani praised King Hussein as "the noblest of the Arabs" and said Iraq is attempting to mesh its war against Iran with the goals of all Arab nations.
With Iraq a major financial supporter, Jordan has reciprocated with preferential arrangements, such as sharing port facilities at Aqaba and improving land transport to them.
The only concrete Jordanian support of Iraq's war effort to surface publicly has been making available a remote northeast airbase as a haven for Iraqi troop transport planes held in reserve.
Arab and Western diplomatic sources here noted lack of overt Syrian support for Iraq and even some expressions of sympathy for Iran. Similarly, most of the gulf states have shown signs of unwillingness to stand up and be counted, partly for fear of being drawn into the conflict.
"The knife is cutting all different ways in the Middle East, and there is a lot of uneasiness about what's going on," said a Wesern diplomat here. "There is a distinct feeling that the smart thing to do is hold your head down and hope there is a cease-fire."
The lack of unanimity over the conflict puts King Hussein in a delicate position. He has gone to some lengths to rally Arab support for Iraq, including telephone calls to Prince Fahd of Saudi Arabia and President Hafez Assad of Syria, after his talk with the Iraqi leader.
An Arab summit is scheduled to convene here in November, and the Jordanian monarch reportedly has been counting on the conference to advance his long-cherished dream of a unified Arab alternative to the Camp David peace process.
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