TEHRAN, Iran (AP) Iran's top leader hinted Saturday that he disapproved of the phone call between Presidents Hassan Rouhani and Barack Obama during the Iranian leader's trip to New York last month, but he reiterated his crucial support for the president's policy of outreach to the West.
The comments by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reflect the difficulties facing Iran's leadership to pursue groundbreaking outreach to Washington without risking a major backlash from hard-line groups uneasy about the pace of the contacts.
In separate remarks, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the exchanges with Washington already have paid dividends by opening opportunities to negotiate a "win-win" nuclear deal that would allow Tehran to maintain its uranium enrichment but provide greater assurances the program remain peaceful. But Iran has not yet given specifics on what it would offer in exchange for possible lifting of Western sanctions when nuclear talks with world powers resume later this month in Geneva.
Zarif also disputed Obama's claim in an Associated Press interview that Iran was more than year from reaching the capacity to build a nuclear weapon. Zarif repeated Iran's claims that it does not seek nuclear arms, and urged the U.S. and its allies not to allow Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to "blackmail the world" and block potential progress in nuclear talks. Netanyahu has said Iran could reach the ability to make a nuclear warhead on an even shorter timeframe than suggested by Obama.
"We can't let him determine the agenda of the talks ... Iran won't develop a weapon," Zarif said on a popular talk show on Iranian state TV. "Not six months. Not six years and not 60 years because it doesn't seek one. Netanyahu has been seeking to deceive the world by his lies."