Trump Has `No Plans' to Meet Iran's Rouhani, But May `Someday'

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he won’t be meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in the imminent future, though he didn’t close the door on doing so eventually as he prepares to address a United Nations gathering on curbing nuclear proliferation.

"Despite requests, I have no plans to meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Maybe someday in the future. I am sure he is an absolutely lovely man!" Trump said in a posting on Twitter.

Trump will take aim at Iran over its nuclear program and ambitions in the Middle East in his second address to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday. The president -- who threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea in his UN speech last year -- is expected to employ a forceful tone toward the Islamic Republic, even if not as bellicose as he did toward Pyongyang.

Trump has pulled the U.S. out of a nuclear agreement with Iran while signing an agreement in principle with North Korea to abandon its nuclear program. His “maximum pressure’’ moniker -- previously describing a series of global sanctions against North Korea -- has now been fitted to the administration’s approach to Iran.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s senior aide said the U.S. president’s “dream” to meet and hold negotiations with top Iranian officials won’t come true.

Trump’s and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s“frenetic dream will never turn reality,” Ali Akbar Velayati, Khamenei’s foreign policy adviser, was quoted as saying by the official Islamic republic News Agency.

To contact the reporter on this story: Terrence Dopp in Washington at tdopp@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Derek Wallbank at dwallbank@bloomberg.net, Elizabeth Wasserman, Kathleen Hunter

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