TEHRAN – A shoe was thrown towards Iranian President Hassan Rohani's car Saturday as he arrived home to a mixed reception for his historic call with Barack Obama. Some 60 hardliners chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” as Rohani's motorcade drew out of Tehran's Mehrabad Airport. But they were outnumbered by 200 to 300 supporters of the president who shouted: “Thank you Rohani.” A small police contingent separated the rival demonstrators. The shoe missed the car and Rohani stood up through the sunroof to acknowledge the crowds. Before leaving New York where he attended the UN General Assembly, Rohani had a 15-minute telephone conversation with Obama on Friday, the first contact between leaders of the two countries in more than three decades. There have been no diplomatic relations between Tehran and Washington since radical students took hostages at the US embassy in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution. Dubbed the “nest of spies” by the regime, the old embassy site has since been the scene of annual commemorations which have been the focal point for hardline anti-US sentiment. The airport protest contrasted with the plaudits Rohani received from the Iranian press for the historic telephone call. Rohani told reporters at the airport that it had been Obama's initiative to make the call. “We were going to the airport, when I was informed that the White House had called the cellphone of our ambassador to the UN,” his office quoted him as saying. “I was informed President Obama wanted to speak to me for a few minutes.” Iranian newspapers crowed that Rohani had wrong-footed the world's media by taking the US president's call after coverage of his keenly-awaited visit to the United Nations in New York had focused on the lack of a face-to-face meeting. “The world caught unawares,” crowed reformist daily Arman. “International media in shock over the telephone call.” The Etemad newspaper carried a photomontage of Rohani and Obama side by side. “Historic contact on way home,” read a banner headline taking up the whole front page. But the paper carried an opinion piece by international relations professor Mohammad Ali Bassiri warning of the challenges that lie ahead to bring about a full rapprochement, not least the opposition of US ally and Iran foe Israel. “These contacts and meetings between Iran and the United States have extremist opponents and both sides must be very careful,” Bassiri wrote. “Many countries, notably the Zionist regime, believe their interests will be jeopardized by a normalization of relations between Iran and the United States and will seek to stop it.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has described Rohani as a “wolf in sheep's clothing,” is to meet Obama on Monday before addressing the UN General Assembly on Tuesday. Former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, widely seen as Rohani's mentor, said the incumbent had pulled off a diplomatic coup by speaking to, but not meeting, Obama. “The fact that Obama asked our president to meet him but the latter said it's too early and we must prepare the ground is the very triumph that God promised us,” Rafsanjani said in comments widely reported in the Iranian press. The commander of the covert operations unit of the elite Revolutionary Guards said the attention lavished on Rohani in New York was a vindication of Iran's tough defense policy. “The respect shown by the world to President Rohani is the fruit of the nation's resistance,” General Ghassem Soleimani was quoted as saying. The Qods Force, which Soleimani commands, lies at the center of US allegations of Iranian state sponsorship of terrorism, one of a raft of issues, over and above Iran's controversial nuclear program, that Rohani is going to have to tackle in any rapprochement. Many newspapers carried front-page photographs of a smiling Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Secretary of State John Kerry at nuclear talks in New York between Iran and the major powers. Zarif said he hoped for a deal within a year to allay international concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions. But Zarif's Western counterparts made clear at the meeting that an agreement will require big concessions from Iran. They include the suspension of all enrichment of uranium beyond the level required to fuel nuclear power plants, and the closure of Iran's underground enrichment facility near the central city of Qom. Back home after the international fanfare, Rohani now has to persuade sceptics within the regime that they are concessions worth making. – Agencies
