Washington sources report that the President Barack Obama made the call to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to hold the first conversation to take place between top US and Iranian leaders since 1979 - after Rouhani deliberately avoided meeting him face to face at the UN General Assembly.
The US president announced the conversation to the media, saying he had told the Iranian leader that a resolution of the nuclear dispute must be meaningful, verifiable and transparent. The path of diplomacy would be hard but had to be tried. Obama also presented the UN resolution on Syrian chemical weapons coming up for approval early Saturday as “a diplomatic breakthrough.”