President Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani could have a public face-to-face encounter at the United Nations General Assembly in September.
Trump intends to chair a session of the U.N. Security Council to focus on Iran, Ambassador Nikki Haley announced Tuesday, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani will have the option of attending the forum. Rouhani has reportedly refused a series of previous requests for private meetings.
“The country can speak if there is a Security Council meeting,” Haley told reporters during a UN press briefing. “So I think that would be up to [Rouhani] as to whether he would want to speak; but, I believe that, according to the rules, he would have that right.”
If Rouhani appears, he would likely find support from at least two members of the council — Russia and China — not to mention the European leaders who regard the Iran nuclear deal as an effective means of defusing a nuclear crisis in the region. Russian and German officials met Tuesday to discuss the possibility of maintaining the deal despite Trump’s withdrawal, even as U.S. sanctions continue to return to force.
“Both sides stressed the importance of keeping the JCPOA in place,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a readout of a meeting between senior Russian and German officials. “A number of other aspects of arms control and non-proliferation were touched upon.”
Trump wants to put a spotlight on Iranian aggression in the Middle East, according to Haley.
“It’s hard to find a place that has conflict where Iran isn’t in the middle of it, and we think that’s a problem, and we think that they’ve been ignored and given a pass for it for too long,” she told reporters. “There’s nothing we would love more than to have Iran come into the mainstream international community and be a valid country that wants to do good in the world. We’re not seeing that.”
