Zarif to Attend UN General Assembly Next Month

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is to visit New York in mid-September to take part in the 72nd United Nations General Assembly.

"Advance planning for the foreign minister's trip is in progress. Besides conducting UN-related affairs, we are hopeful of having successful negotiations with foreign officials on the sidelines," ISNA reported Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qasemi as saying on Monday.

The annual gathering starts on September 12 and is expected to last until December or January, as usual.

During his stay in New York, Zarif is likely to hold a meeting with his counterparts from P5+1 (the US, UK, France, China and Russia, plus Germany), with which he negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal.

Iranian nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, announced on Sunday Zarif will probably call for a ministerial meeting involving signatories to the deal.

At issue would be Iran's grievances over the uncooperative US approach toward the deal, which were aired during the administration of former American president, Barack Obama, and have been intensified since he was replaced by Donald Trump.

The controversial president has been deeply antagonistic toward the multilateral pact and is currently looking for pretexts to pull out of it.

Qasemi said a New York trip by President Hassan Rouhani for attending the UNGA gathering of world leaders, known as the General Debate, is still under consideration.

Rouhani, who was reelected in a landslide in May, has attended all General Debates since he first took office in 2013.

According to a preliminary list of speakers posted on the UNGA website, Rouhani is due to deliver a speech on September 20 in the General Debate, which convenes a day earlier and lasts until September 25.

  Erdogan to Visit

Qasemi said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is due to visit Tehran in the near future to discuss bilateral relations.

The spokesman said the details of the trip are yet to be finalized with Turkish officials.

Earlier this month, Erdogan hosted a meeting with Iran's military chief, Major General Mohammad Baqeri, in Ankara. During the visit, which was unprecedented for an Iranian military chief since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Baqeri and top Turkish officials agreed to boost defense ties and advance anti-terror cooperation.

Qasemi said the trip, during which Baqeri conducted "very good" negotiations, signaled that Tehran-Ankara ties have entered a new phase.

"General Baqeri's trip showed that Iran-Turkey relations are well-developed in other fields and the two can have further interaction in the military sector," he said.