Obama: I Exchanged Letters with Rouhani

Local Editor

After he had found no way out of diplomacy in Syria, US President Barack Obama disclosed Sunday that he had exchanged letters with Iran's new President Hassan Rouhani.

He further stated that diplomacy on Syria, backed up by a military threat, was a potential model for negotiations on Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
In an interview on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," Obama did not reveal details of the letter exchange, but made clear that US concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions are a "far larger issue for us" than Syria's chemical weapons.
He and Rouhani will speak at the UN General Assembly next week on the same day.

A White House spokeswoman said there are currently no plans for them to meet at the United Nations.
Obama said Iran should avoid thinking that the United States would not launch a military strike in response to Tehran's nuclear program just because it has not attacked Syria.

"They shouldn't draw a lesson that we haven't struck, to think we won't strike Iran," Obama said, and pointed out that "on the other hand, what they should draw from this lesson is that there is the potential of resolving these issues 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.
White House spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said the United States hoped the Iranian government would engage substantively in order to reach a diplomatic solution to the nuclear issue.

"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 said.
In the interview, Obama rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin's confirmation that Syrian armed groups were responsible for an Aug. 21 chemical gas attack, but he welcomed Putin's diplomatic role in the crisis.
"Well, nobody around the world takes seriously the idea that the rebels were the perpetrators of this [attack]," Obama said.

Iran continued to reject the allegations, of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program, 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.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team