The plan was for 8:30 p.m. at the hotel where Iran’s president was staying. That’s where President Donald Trump wanted to meet Hassan Rouhani for the first time last year in New York. The idea was for the encounter to take place a number of hours after Trump's Sept. 19 speech at the United Nations General Assembly, which was characterized by harsh criticism of the country whose president Trump now wanted to sit down with. The US president had said, “The Iranian government masks a corrupt dictatorship behind the false guise of a democracy. … It is time for the entire world to join us in demanding that Iran’s government end its pursuit of death and destruction.”

The request for a meeting was initially made by US State Department officials who got in touch with their French counterparts to ask President Emmanuel Macron to convey Trump’s message to Rouhani, who addressed the UN a day after Trump. French interlocutors initially had a hard time connecting the French president to his Iranian counterpart, according to a US diplomat who spoke with Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “There was a lot of back and forth in a short period of time,” the envoy said. Getting hold of Rouhani proved difficult, as he appeared to be in a long meeting. Finally, after numerous attempts, the Iranian and French presidents got on the phone. What precisely was said remains a question mark. One French official told Al-Monitor, “The Elysee does not comment on the president’s private meetings or calls.” But the Iranians have recently divulged some details. Last month, Rouhani’s chief of staff told reporters that Iran rejected not one but eight requests from the United States for a meeting of their presidents. 

However, it should equally be noted that just days before the United States reached out, as Rouhani arrived in New York for the gathering of world leaders, some of his senior advisers were not only open but in fact eager to engage with the new US administration — without preconditions.

“We’d like them [the Trump administration] to hear what we have to say [about the nuclear deal],” one presidential adviser said at the time, hours after arriving in New York with the Iranian delegation. “As long as they’re not disrespectful, of course,” the adviser added. During the course of the same conversation, one of the reporters covering the General Assembly last year suggested that the Iranian president go on Fox News if Iran really wants Trump’s ear. The idea wasn’t rejected right away. But when the conversation came up again a few days later, the appetite for such a maneuver had dissipated.