Rohani waves before his departure to the US to attend the UN General Assembly, at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport yesterday.

Reuters/Dubai


President Hassan Rohani said yesterday he would use his visit to the UN this week to present the “true face of Iran” and to pursue talks and co-operation with the West to end Iran’s nuclear dispute.
A moderate conservative elected in June, Rohani was speaking shortly before a five-day trip Western powers hope will show a new readiness on Tehran’s part to strike a deal on a nuclear programme they fear could yield an atomic bomb.
Iran has repeatedly stated its nuclear activities are peaceful, a message it sought to emphasise yesterday with the phased transfer to Iranian engineers of its only nuclear power plant from its Russian contractors.
“Unfortunately in recent years the face of Iran, a great and civilised nation, has been presented in another way,” Rohani said, according to comments published on his official website. “I and my colleagues will take the opportunity to present the true face of Iran as a cultured and peace-loving country,”
Rohani did not make clear who he blames for any distortion of Iran’s image. But the comments suggest he is intent on distancing himself from the controversial, outspoken approach to the West adopted by predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Rohani, a former nuclear negotiator under reformist president Mohamed Khatami, criticised the West over sanctions he said had inflicted suffering on Iranians.
“On this trip, I will try to deliver the voice of the oppressed people of Iran to the world and we should say that sanctions are an illegal and unacceptable path,” he told journalists before leaving, his official website reported.
“The West should opt for the path of talks and co-operation and consider mutual interests,” he said.
Rohani has vowed to improve Iran’s ailing economy, which has suffered deeply from embargoes.
Last week Rohani’s tone was endorsed by Iran’s most powerful figure, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who spoke of “heroic flexibility”, suggesting a new willingness to engage in diplomacy with Iran’s adversaries.
US officials have left open the possibility that US President Barack Obama and Rohani could meet on the sidelines of the UN meeting.
Rohani described the transfer of the Bushehr nuclear power plant from its Russian engineers as a “blessed event”.
Iran’s nuclear energy chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, said Tehran was in talks with Moscow about the construction of more such plants.
Russian experts would remain at the plant under an agreement between the two sides before it is transferred completely to Iran, Isna news agency quoted him as saying, describing it as an “interim” phase that could last two years.


US, Iran FMs
to hold first
nuclear talks


AFP/Washington


The foreign ministers of arch-rivals, the US and Iran, will hold their first talks on Iran’s contested nuclear drive at a landmark meeting on Thursday, officials said.
Mohamed Javad Zarif, foreign minister in Iran’s new government, and US Secretary of State John Kerry will join counterparts from Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia at the meeting at the UN headquarters, US officials said.
High level contacts between Iranian and US officials have been rare since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. But in a new sign of a possible thaw, the White House said it was not ruling out a meeting between President Barack Obama and Iran’s new President Hassan Rohani on the sidelines of this week’s UN General Assembly.
The encounter between Zarif and Kerry, confirmed by US officials—and arranged for Thursday, according to diplomats—comes as Iran signals it wants the international community to ease crippling sanctions over its uranium enrichment.
Rohani said in a US television interview last week that Iran would “never” build a nuclear bomb. But the US and its allies still believe Tehran wants a bomb capability and are waiting for signs that Rohani is serious about seeking better relations, diplomats said.
“As we have said previously, we hope that the new Iranian government will engage substantively with the international community to reach a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear programme,” said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
“We remain ready to work with Iran should the Rohani administration choose to engage seriously.”
Kerry “welcomes the foreign minister’s commitment to a substantive response” and to meeting with the six major powers, Psaki added.
Zarif started meetings with Western officials in New York yesterday, ahead of the arrival of Rohani to address the UN General Assembly today.
Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief and the leader of efforts by the major powers to engage with Tehran, said she had “good and constructive” talks with Zarif.
Ashton said that she would meet more formally with Zarif and the two sides’ advisers in Geneva in October.
She voiced hope for progress, but played down hopes of a breakthrough. “I was struck by the energy and determination on the part of the minister,” Ashton told reporters. But she added, “As you would appreciate, there is a huge amount of work to do.”
Thursday’s meeting will be a milestone between the US and Iran, which broke diplomatic relations in 1980 after the overthrow of the late Shah and the taking of US diplomats as hostages.
In 2007 US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice met her Iranian counterpart over an ice cream at an international summit at Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt in 2007.
Her predecessor, Colin Powell met Iran’s foreign minister at the same venue in 2004. But no Iranian minister has taken part in ministerial meetings of the major powers trying to persuade Iran to halt its nuclear drive.
Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, told reporters that while Obama was not scheduled to meet with Rohani, it could not be ruled out.
“We are open to engagement with the Iranian government on a variety of levels provided that they will follow through on their commitment to address the international community’s concern on their nuclear programme,” he said.
Obama has pledged to test whether Rohani, who is considered a moderate within the clerical regime, is serious about resolving Western concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme.