As Iranian President Hassan Rouhani left Tehran for New York yesterday, Sept. 22, for the 69th UN General Assembly, various conservatives held conferences and published op-eds warning the president about the nuclear negotiations to take place on the sidelines of the assembly and against a possible handshake with the US president. Supporters of the president have also voiced their opinions via open letters and Twitter.
Tehran University professor Sadegh Zibakalam wrote in a Sept. 21 open letter to Rouhani, “You have not yet set foot on the plane and extremists have pre-emptively started beating the anti-American drums on the matter of you meeting with the American President Barack Obama and [saying] that you do not have permission to do so.”