Sheikh Rouhani Receives Hero Welcome upon Arrival Home

Iranian President Sheikh Hasan Rouhani returned to Tehran from New York on Saturday after his historic phone call with Barack Obama to cheers from Iranians at Tehran airport.

Sheikh RouhaniThe Supreme leader, Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei, sent his closest foreign policy adviser to greet Sheikh Rouhani.

The presence of Ali Akbar Velayati gave weight to Rouhani’s insistence that he had the highest authority to pursue his diplomatic initiative at the UN general assembly, which culminated in a groundbreaking 15-minute phone conversation with US President Barack Obama on Friday, conducted on a mobile phone while Rouhani was on the way to John F Kennedy airport.

The conversation was the first direct communication between an Iranian a US president since Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Qassem Suleimani, the head of the Revolutionary Guards’ external operations wing, the Quds Force, acknowledged the respect the world had shown to Rouhani, attributing it to the “resistance and endurance” of the nation.

“Yesterday, at the moment we were preparing for moving towards the airport, the White House contacted us and expressed the willingness of the US president to have a phone conversation for some minutes,” Sheikh Rouhani told reporters at Tehran’s Mehrabad airport according to the Fars News Agency.

Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs said a single phone call will not thaw the long history of tension-laden relations between Tehran and Washington.

“We are still at the beginning of a long path. Furthermore, we have our doubts, and, as the Leader said, one cannot be optimistic about these talks; but this is a path the Leader has also said is not opposed to,” Abbas Araqchi said.

Referring to the White House’s request for a meeting between the presidents of the two countries, Araqchi said Hasan Rouhani declined the offer because arranging such a meeting after a long history of tense relations involved many complications.

Araqchi added that after Iran declined the White House’s request for a meeting, the idea of the phone conversation between the presidents came about during consultations among Iran’s representatives to the UN and American officials.