U.S. and Iran Agree to Speed Talks to Defuse Nuclear Issue
By PETER BAKER
President Obama said he saw the basis for a deal after speaking on the
phone with President Hassan Rouhani of Iran, the first discussion
between leaders of the two countries since 1979.
Doug Mills/The New York Times
Obama’s Statement on Iran:
President Obama said he spoke with President Hassan Rouhani of Iran by
phone, the first direct contact between leaders of Iran and the United
States since 1979.
By PETER BAKER
Published: September 27, 2013
WASHINGTON — The long-fractured relationship between the United States
and Iran took a significant turn on Friday when President Obama and
President Hassan Rouhani became the first leaders of their countries to
speak since the Tehran hostage crisis more than three decades ago.
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Text: Obama’s Remarks on Iran and the Budget Debate in Congress (September 28, 2013)
Doug Mills/The New York Times
President Obama announced having a phone conversation with President Hassan Rouhani.
Todd Heisler/The New York Times
President Hassan Rouhani of Iran at a news conference
Friday at a hotel near the United Nations. He then headed to the
airport.
In a hurriedly arranged telephone call, Mr. Obama reached Mr. Rouhani as
the Iranian leader was headed to the airport to leave New York after a
whirlwind news media and diplomatic blitz. The two agreed to accelerate
talks aimed at defusing the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program and
afterward expressed optimism at the prospect of a rapprochement that
would transform the Middle East.
“Resolving this issue, obviously, could also serve as a major step
forward in a new relationship between the United States and the Islamic
Republic of Iran, one based on mutual interests and mutual respect,” Mr.
Obama, referring to Tehran’s nuclear program, told reporters at the
White House after the 15-minute phone call. “It would also help
facilitate a better relationship between Iran and the international
community, as well as others in the region.”
A Twitter account
in Mr. Rouhani’s name later stated, “In regards to nuclear issue, with
political will, there is a way to rapidly solve the matter.” The account
added that Mr. Rouhani had told Mr. Obama, “We’re hopeful about what we
will see from” the United States and other major powers “in coming
weeks and months.”
The conversation was the first between Iranian and American leaders
since 1979 when President Jimmy Carter spoke by telephone with Shah
Mohammed Reza Pahlavi shortly before the shah left the country,
according to Iran experts. The Islamic Revolution that toppled the
shah’s government led to the seizure of the American Embassy and a
444-day hostage crisis that have left the two countries at odds with
each other ever since.
Although both Republican and Democratic presidents have reached out to
Tehran in the interim, contact had been reserved to letters or
lower-level officials.
The call came just days after Mr. Obama had hoped to encounter Mr.
Rouhani at a luncheon at the United Nations and expected to shake hands.
Mr. Rouhani skipped the luncheon and later indicated it was premature
to meet Mr. Obama. But a meeting on Thursday between Secretary of State
John Kerry and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif of Iran was
described as constructive and led Iranian officials to contact the White
House on Friday to suggest the phone call, according to American
officials.
A senior Obama administration official, who briefed reporters on the
condition of anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities, said the
White House had expressed the president’s interest in meeting Mr.
Rouhani to the Iranians this week but was surprised when they suggested
the phone call. Mr. Obama placed the call from the Oval Office around
2:30 p.m., joined by aides and a translator.
He opened by congratulating Mr. Rouhani on his election in June and
noted the history of mistrust between the two nations, but also what he
called the constructive statements Mr. Rouhani had made during his stay
in New York, according to the official. The bulk of the call focused on
the nuclear dispute, and Mr. Obama repeated that he respected Iran’s
right to develop civilian nuclear energy, but insisted on concessions to
prevent development of weapons.
Mr. Obama also raised the cases of three Americans in Iran, one missing
and two others detained. In a lighter moment, he apologized for New York
traffic.
The call ended on a polite note, according to the official and Mr. Rouhani’s Twitter account.
“Have a nice day,” Mr. Rouhani said in English.
“Thank you,” Mr. Obama replied, and then tried a Persian farewell. “Khodahafez.”
By talking on the phone instead of in person, Mr. Rouhani avoided a
politically problematic photo of himself with Mr. Obama, which could
have inflamed hard-liners in Iran who were already wary of his outreach
to the United States. As it was, conservative elements in Tehran tried
to reinterpret his statements acknowledging the Holocaust while he was
in New York.
The state news channel, the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network, had
not mentioned the phone call with Mr. Obama as of midnight Friday after
word of it broke, and the original messages on Mr. Rouhani’s Twitter
account were deleted and replaced with more anodyne comments. But Mr.
Rouhani’s office announced the call in a statement carried by the
Iranian state news agency.
“This voice contact has for now replaced the actual shaking of hands,
but this is clearly the start of a process that could in the future lead
to a face-to-face meeting between both leaders,” said Amir Mohebbian, a
political adviser close to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei.
Abbas Milani, an Iranian scholar at Stanford University, said Mr.
Rouhani wanted to avoid looking as if he was making concessions. “The
U.S. and the West have wisely decided to allow the regime to make its
claims of victory at home, so long as they play earnest ball in meetings
abroad,” Mr. Milani said. A call to a leader on the way to the airport
may not be normal protocol, he added, but “in this case it was adroit
policy for both sides.”
American advocates of closer relations between the two countries were
optimistic. “The phone call wasn’t just history,” said Joseph
Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, an arms control group,
who attended a dinner with Mr. Rouhani in New York. “It helped
fundamentally change the course of Iranian-U.S. relations. We’re on a
very different trajectory than we were even at the beginning of the
week.”
But others expressed caution, arguing that Iran was reaching out only
because of the sanctions that have strangled its economy.
“The economic pain now is sufficient to oblige a telephone call, though
not a face-to-face meeting,” said Reuel Marc Gerecht, a senior fellow at
the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which supports stronger
sanctions against Iran. “We will see whether the pain is sufficient for
the Iranians to shut the heavy-water plant at Arak and reverse Iran’s
path to a rapid breakout capacity with enriched uranium.”
Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the Republican majority leader,
criticized Mr. Obama for not pressing Iran to halt what he said was its
support for terrorism and for Syria’s government. “It is particularly
unfortunate that President Obama would recognize the Iranian people’s
right to nuclear energy but not stand up for their right to freedom,
human rights or democracy,” he said.
In announcing the call with Mr. Rouhani, Mr. Obama said that only
“meaningful, transparent and verifiable actions” on the nuclear program
could “bring relief” from sanctions.
“A path to a meaningful agreement will be difficult, and at this point,
both sides have significant concerns that will have to be overcome,” he
said. “But I believe we’ve got a responsibility to pursue diplomacy, and
that we have a unique opportunity to make progress with the new
leadership in Tehran.”
Recognizing the delicacy of the outreach effort, Mr. Obama made a point
of trying to reassure Israel that he would not jeopardize an ally’s
security. “Throughout this process, we’ll stay in close touch with our
friends and allies in the region, including Israel,” he said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is scheduled to visit Mr. Obama at the White House on Monday.
Before leaving New York, Mr. Rouhani said his government would present a
plan in three weeks on how to resolve the nuclear standoff. “I expect
this trip will be the first step and the beginning of constructive
relations with countries of the world,” he said at a news conference.
He went on to say that he hoped the visit would also improve relations
“between two great nations, Iran and the United States,” adding that the
trip had exceeded his expectations.
Mr. Rouhani and his aides have been on an extraordinarily energetic
campaign to prove that they are moderate and reasonable partners and to
draw a stark contrast with his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But Mr.
Rouhani has yet to propose anything concrete to suggest how different
the Iranians really are in their approach. The first glimpse of that is
due to come on Oct. 15 and 16, when Iran plans to present its own road
map in Geneva.
Mr. Rouhani emphasized that his government had the authority and the
will to reach a nuclear settlement within what he called “a short period
of time.” But he was visibly irritated when asked whether his
diplomatic blitz was merely designed to buy time with his Western
interlocutors.
“We have never chosen deceit as a path,” he said. “We have never chosen secrecy.”
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