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Rouhani receives mixed reception in Tehran after historic Obama call
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Hundreds of Iranians cheered President Hassan Rouhani on his return from New York yesterday after his historic phone call with US President Barack Obama.
But a smaller number of hardliners shouted “Death to America” and threw eggs and shoes at his official car leaving the airport, Iranian media reported.
While an anticipated handshake between Rouhani and Obama at United Nations headquarters failed to materialise, they held a 15-minute call on Friday at the end of the moderate new Iranian president’s trip for the UN General Assembly.
Iranian media said hundreds of Rouhani supporters keen to see him make good on pledges of “constructive interaction” with the world to ease Iran’s isolation and get punitive sanctions lifted turned up to hail his UN visit.
But about 100 conservative hardliners also appeared and, shouting the “Death to America” slogan common since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, pelted his car with eggs and stones in protest at Rouhani’s diplomatic opening towards Washington, according to witness reports posted on Twitter.
The semi-official Mehr news agency ran pictures of protesters holding a “Death to America” placard and banging the sides of Rouhani’s limousine as it departed the airport.
Mehr said one protester threw his shoes at the car, a gesture of deep insult in the Islamic faith.
One senior parliamentarian tentatively welcomed Rouhani’s conversation with Obama as a sign of the Islamic Republic’s “position of authority.”
“This (phone call) shows that Iran’s place in the world is of critical importance. That the president of America insists on a telephone call is a sign of sincerity,” Mehr quoted the head of parliament’s committee for national security and foreign affairs, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, as saying yesterday.
The Iranian currency, the rial, climbed against the dollar by around two percent following the landmark phone call.
The call signaled a striking shift in tone between Iran and Washington, which cut diplomatic relations a year after the 1979 revolution ousted US-allied Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and led to the US Embassy hostage crisis.
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