White House: Obama will not meet with Iran president in New York

The White House says US President Barack Obama will not meet with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York next week.

“There are currently no plans for the president and President Rouhani to meet at UNGA,” National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said in an email to American newspaper The Hill.

“As we have said, we hope that this new Iranian government will engage substantively in order to reach a diplomatic solution that will fully address the international community’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear program,” Meehan said.

“We remain ready to engage with the Rouhani government on the basis of mutual respect to achieve a peaceful resolution to the nuclear issue,” she added.

The denial came one day after British newspaper The Guardian reported on Sunday that an exchange of letters between Obama and Rouhani “has set the stage for a possible meeting.”

President Obama in an interview with ABC on Sunday said that he had contacted his Iranian counterpart via letters.

Obama also said Iran should not interpret the diplomatic course on Syria as suggesting the United States would not attack Iran. He signaled that it was possible to resolve Iran’s nuclear program standoff diplomatically.

“My view is that if you have both a credible threat of force, combined with a rigorous diplomatic effort, that, in fact you can… strike a deal,” he said.

The United States, Israel, and some of their allies accuse Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.

Iran rejects the allegations, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.