Page 7 - bne IntelliNews Country Report: Iran Dec17

2.2 Iranian President Rouhani gave Trump cold shoulder during UN General Assembly trip
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani rejected a request to meet face-to-face with US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, according to at least two sources in the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Fars News Agency reported on October 29.
Rouhani reportedly did not respond favourably to Trump’s invitation to meet, apparently extended one day after the most bellicose speech directed at Iran by any sitting US President since the 1979 Islamic Revolution which brought the clerics to power. In that speech, Trump depicted Iran as a sponsor of terrorism and as a rogue nation run by a “corrupt dictatorship behind the false guise of a democracy”. He also condemned the nuclear deal as “an embarrassment” to the US. The next day, in his own speech to the UN General Assembly, Rouhani described Trump’s speech as “ignorant, absurd and hateful”.
"US President Trump invited President Rouhani to have a face-to-face meeting during Mr Rouhani's visit to New York to participate in the UN annual conference in September, but our president turned down the offer," Mehdi Fazaeli, a senior government official wrote on Iranian social media and told newspapers.
Fazaeli added that Rouhani also chose not to accept an offered meeting from French President Emanuel Macron in New York.
Reflecting on Trump’s invitation, Fazaeli said: "The Americans are sure that such negotiations will benefit them, but there will be no achievements for Iran but harm."
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said Fazaeli was correct to say Trump had made such an offer of a meeting, noting that "this willingness [to meet Rouhani] was expressed by the American side, but was rejected by the Iranian president". However, Qassemi said he did not believe it to be accurate to say Macron had offered a meeting.
Tehran and Washington officially severed diplomatic ties in 1979. In 2013, Barack Obama and Rouhani spoke by telephone. It was the highest-level contact between the two countries in decades.
Trump’s opposition to the nuclear deal as it stands has been opposed by all the other signatories—Iran and five major powers—while the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) has certified Iranian compliance with it eight times.
2.3 Concern over painfully slow progress of Total’s Iran investment against Trump backdrop
An Iranian MP has questioned why French energy major Total is moving so slowly with i ts major investment in the South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf, Tasnim News Agency reported on October 31.
7 IRAN Country Report November 2017 www.intellinews.com