The US and Iranian Presidents, Barack Obama and Hassan Rowhani, came agonisingly close to a historic handshake on Tuesday, officials said.
“It got so close that they had chosen the room and ordered some water,” said a diplomat with knowledge of talks between the two sides on holding a breakthrough encounter. Leaders from Iran and the United States have not met since the 1979 Islamic Revolution brought often open hostility to their contacts, particularly over Iran’s contested nuclear programme.
Mr Obama and Mr Rowhani, who since winning an election in June has said he wants to improve relations, spoke several hours apart at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday. They were never in the same room together.
The US appears to have taken the lead in pressing for a discussion of just a few minutes. The two sides discussed a possible meeting, but in the end it proved to be “too complicated” for Iran, said a senior United States official.
Mr Rowhani told CNN how “preparation” for a meeting was carried out. “The United States declared its interest in having such a meeting and in principle could have, under certain circumstances, allowed it to happen,” he added.
“I believe we didn’t have sufficient time to really coordinate the meeting.”