WASHINGTON — President Obama could be meeting with the new president of Iran in New York next week — the first time leaders of the two countries would be talking face to face since 1977.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who succeeded militant blowhard Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been sending signals that he wants to engage the West in talks and lift crippling sanctions imposed on his nation.
Obama revealed in a Sunday interview with ABC that he and Rouhani had exchanged letters, and Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported that an impromptu meeting between the two could occur at the United Nations’ opening session next week.
“Just the fact of meeting, regardless of how much substantive distance could be traveled, would be a favorable development,” said Paul Pillar, an Iran expert at Georgetown University — adding that he would be surprised if an informal “corridor encounter” didn’t take place.
Obama exchanged letters with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khomeini in 2009 and again in 2012, but the efforts to open a dialog fizzled.
A meeting would be the first between US and Iranian leaders since 1977, when Jimmy Carter met with the shah.