TEHRAN – President Hassan Rouhani is set to travel to New York on Monday to attend the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting, according to the president’s office.

“In addition to his speech at the General Assembly, President Rouhani will meet top media directors and experts of New York and a number of America’s foreign policy elites,” Parviz Esmaeili, the president’s media officer, said on Sunday.

Esmaeili said the president will be interviewed by some media outlets and will hold a press conference at the end of his stay in New York, IRNA reported.

Rouhani will also meet some heads of state, the secretary general of the United Nations and some heads of international organizations, he added.

The report followed after Iran’s UN mission announced that the U.S. has issued visas allowing President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif to travel to New York for the UN meeting.

Zarif had said earlier that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was trying to delay issuing visas for the Iranian delegation.

Meanwhile, amid U.S. requests for a Trump-Rouhani meeting at the gathering of the world leaders, Tehran last Monday dismissed the possibility of such meeting, saying “neither is such a plan on our agenda nor will such a thing happen.”

However, Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said, if the United States “stops economic terrorism and returns to the nuclear deal, then they may sit at a corner and be present within the framework of the nuclear deal member states,” the New York Times reported, citing Fars news agency.

Earlier, the White House had said that it was not ruling out the possibility of a meeting between Trump and Rouhani on the sidelines of the UN summit.

Trump himself has, on numerous occasions, voiced willingness to meet Rouhani, while at the same time putting enormous economic and political pressure on Iran.

The relationship between the two nations has deteriorated since last year, when Trump unbelievably withdrew the United States from the 2015 deal and reimposed punishing economic sanctions on Tehran.

MH/PA