Iran's president reaches West before heading to UN

On the eve of a landmark trip to attend the UN General Assembly, Iran's president offered today his most expansive vision that a deal to settle the impasse over Tehran's nuclear program could open doors for greater cooperation on regional flash points such as the Syrian civil war.
The linkage of Middle East affairs and broad-stroke rhetoric by Hasan Rouhani served as something of a final sales pitch to President Barack Obama ahead of the UN gathering, where Rouhani hopes to garner pledges from Western envoys to restart stalled nuclear negotiations as a way to ease painful economic sanctions.
Rouhani also must try to sell his policies of outreach to skeptical Iranian hard-liners, including the powerful Revolutionary Guard.

Failure to return from New York with some progress either pledges to revive nuclear talks or hints that the US and its allies may consider relaxing sanctions could increase pressures on Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to withdraw his apparent backing for Rouhani's overtures with Washington.
It adds up to a high-stakes week ahead for Rouhani in his first gathering with Western leaders since his inauguration last month.
While his effort to open new diplomatic space is genuine, it's still unclear where it could find footholds. Obama has exchanged letters with Rouhani and says he would welcome groundbreaking direct talks after a nearly 35-year diplomatic estrangement. But Washington previously has rejected offering a significant rollback in sanctions Rouhani's main goal as a way to push ahead nuclear talks.

Rouhani and Obama are scheduled to speak within hours of each other Tuesday at the General Assembly's annual meeting, setting up the possibility of the first face-to-face exchange between American and Iranian leaders since shortly after Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution.