White House: Iran’s positive talk due to sanctions

A top national security adviser to President Obama argued on Friday that newly installed Iranian President Hasan Rouhani's efforts to open diplomatic channels with the United States are due in large part to sanctions the Obama administration has levied against Tehran over its nuclear program.

"We believe part of their current focus on pursuing diplomacy is clearly related to a desire to address the sanctions regime they are under," said Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes.

With Obama and Rouhani set to travel to New York for next week's annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, all eyes are on whether the two leaders will try to build on a recent thawing in the adversarial relationship.

Since Rouhani took office last month, the two leaders say they have exchanged letters and Rouhani, who campaigned as a moderate, has made clear that the Iranian clerical hierarchy has given him the space and power to pursue a diplomatic solution to the nuclear standoff.

While the Obama administration is showing cautious optimism that Rouhani's rhetoric will be backed by action, the Israeli government warned this week that "one must not be fooled by the Iranian president's fraudulent words."

Israel's Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz also charged in an interview published on Friday that the Iranians were attempting to buy time. "There is no more time to hold negotiations," Steinitz told Israel's Hayom daily.

The White House says Obama is not scheduled to meet with Rouhani while he's in New York, but the president already has several bilateral meetings lined up.

Obama will met with Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday. The following day he'll meet with Lebanese President Michel Suleiman, U.N. Security General Ban-Ki Moon and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The meeting with Abbas will be the first face-to-face between the two leaders since the Palestinians and Israelis relaunched peace talks earlier this summer.

Obama is scheduled to meet with Netanyahu at the White House on Sept. 30.

No U.S. president has met a top Iranian leader since Islamic radicals overthrew the pro-American Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi more than 34 years ago. If Obama and Rouhani even shook hands, it would mark a significant moment in the tense U.S.-Iran relationship.

Rhodes reiterated on Friday that Obama has maintained since his run for the White House that he remains open to bilateral discussions with Iran, but that ultimately the nuclear issue is one that will need to involve the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany.

"The issues between the United States and Iran are not ones that will be settled in any one discussion," Rhodes said.