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Rouhani broke no new diplomatic ground in his speech. In a private session with energy executives, he promised a new, attractive investment model for oil contracts by September as part of a drive to lure back Western business barred by the U.S.-led sanctions, participants said.

"Iran should use this window of opportunity with determination to move to a comprehensive long-term solution on the nuclear issue," Barroso said in a statement. "This would open up the potential for an improved relationship and broader cooperation."

Senior Gulf Arab businessmen from Saudi Arabia and Bahrain who heard the speech said it was hard to believe Rouhani was genuine about his wish for better relations with Iran's neighbours. They also said any trade deals would be for cash only until some payments channel could be arranged.

tatements made by the Iranian leader and his top aides at the World Economic Forum rekindled concerns in Washington and Europe about his ability to deliver.

But neither Mr. Rouhani, nor his foreign minister, Javad Zarif, used their visit to the Swiss alpine village to convey a willingness to accept the substantial dismantling of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure that a final agreement with the U.S. and its diplomatic partners is going to entail.

The Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington think tank that has advised the Obama administration, estimates Tehran will need to mothball or destroy 15,000 of its 20,000 centrifuge machines to guarantee it can’t rapidly “break out” and produce weapons-grade fuel.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani Saturday urged world powers not to miss an "exceptional opportunity" to reach an agreement in their ongoing nuclear talks in Geneva. "I hope that the P5+1 group make the most out of this exceptional opportunity that the Iranian nation has offered to the international community, so that we can reach a positive result within a reasonable timeframe," he was quoted as saying by official IRNA news agency.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani  says he wants to rebuild diplomatic relations with Western powers, even as he insists the country will “never never give up our right to nuclear energy.”

“We’ll never give up our right to #nuclear energy. But we’re working towards removing all doubts and answer all reasonable questions.”

"Our relationship w/ the world is based on Iranian nation's interests. In #Geneva agreement world powers surrendered to Iranian nation's will," a tweet from the Iranian leader's account said on Tuesday. 

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney downplayed Rouhani's remarks when asked about them at Tuesday's press briefing. He said these kinds of remarks are "expected" and geared toward their government's "domestic audience." 

"It doesn't matter what they say. It matters what they do," he said. 

Here's How The Historic Phone Call Between Obama And Hassan Rouhani Happened

Tehran’s move to free its central bank from direct government control and to resume working with international banking authorities may have prompted the U.S. to ease sanctions, whether or not Iran complies with restrictions on uranium enrichment.

Now, the record of the past two months suggests Iran, in exchange for relief from increasingly onerous economic sanctions, will agree to abandon its government-controlled Iranian central bank.

since the administration of President George W. Bush that Iran has waged a war against using the dollar as the standard for pricing and settling oil transactions worldwide

the controversy represents the first big unforced error by the heretofore tactically savvy team surrounding President Hassan Rouhani. It should serve as a forewarning to Rouhani and the rest of Iran's re-ascendant moderates that not all of their revolutionary excesses will be excused simply to avoid rattling their hard-liners.

And as former senior U.S. official (and former hostage) John Limbert remarked in his criticisms of the nomination, "(e)ven if he does eventually come to New York, he will be useless as spokesperson for the Islamic Republic. Previous ambassadors have taken on that role, but who here – considering his past – will ever listen to him?"

more than six months after Mr. Rouhani took office, hopes of a quick economic recovery are fading among ordinary Iranians, business owners and investors, while economists say the government is running out of cash.

With the start of the Iranian new year, on Friday, the government will begin phasing out subsidies on energy, the start of a process that will send the prices of gasoline and electricity, and other utilities, soaring by nearly 90 percent, economists say.

The shortage of funds is also forcing the government to wind down a system of $12 monthly payments to nearly 60 million Iranians, with only the poorest eligible to reapply.

After Iran and the major powers signed onto an interim deal on Tehran’s nuclear program, expectations were high. Over the past week, they have fallen sharply as Iranian officials have made tough public comments and Israel’s prime minister has reaffirmed his opposition to almost any conceivable deal, a skepticism shared by several influential U.S. senators.

Iran and America have fundamentally different views about an acceptable final deal.

Iran’s officials will have to come to terms with the fact that their country is being treated differently and for good reasons. Iran has a program that is suspicious — a massive investment to produce a tiny amount of electricity — and the country has deceived the world about its program in the past.

"At the recent Geneva talks good progress was made, but everyone must realise excessive demands could complicate the process towards a win-win agreement," www.dolat.ir quoted Rouhani as telling Russian President Vladimir Putin.

David Cameron became the first British PM to call the Iranian President in more than a decade, ahead of next week's nuclear negotiations in Geneva.

debkafile’s Iranian sources reveal the red lines with which the Iranian delegation to the talks has been armed for accepting an interim deal with the six powers on their nuclear program: 1)  Iran will not shut down its underground enrichment plant at Fordo. 2)  Work on building the Arak heavy water reactor will not be halted. 3)  Iran will not allow the export of a single gram of its enriched uranium from the country. 4)  Iran will not sign the Additional Protocol of the Non-Proliferation Treaty which expands international supervision of its nuclear program and permits snap inspections.

Khamenei is confident he can bring President Obama to heel and force him to live with key elements of Iran’s nuclear bomb program.

privately, the president asked to be received by the supreme leader in order to warn him that persistent Iranian intransigence would blow up negotiations on the first, six-month step of a comprehensive agreement and bury the prospect of eased sanctions.

The president warned Khamenei earlier that the Iranian treasury is empty and without some sanction relief in the next couple of months, the government will be unable to cover its current operating expenses.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., criticized Obama for failing to pressure Rouhani on Iran's support for Islamic extremist groups and on human rights issues. He said the U.S. is fooling itself if it thinks that Rouhani, who took office in August after running on a more moderate platform, isn't beholden to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who controls matters of state, including the nuclear program.

"It's way too soon to presume either the prospect of an agreement on the nuclear program, which we hope to be able to achieve, but we're quite sober about the potential for that," Obama's national security adviser, Susan Rice, told CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS." She added that "if we could have a peaceful resolution of the nuclear program and an end to Iran's support for terrorism and other behavior that has concerned us over many years, then we could begin a serious discussion about the future."

The United States and Iran secretly engaged in a series of high-level, face-to-face talks over the past year, in a high-stakes diplomatic gamble by the Obama administration that paved the way for the historic deal sealed early Sunday in Geneva aimed at slowing Tehran's nuclear program, The Associated Press has learned.

discussions were kept hidden

President Barack Obama personally authorized the talks

Before Mr. Rouhani traveled to New York, Mr. Khamenei had appeared to give his blessing to fresh negotiations, saying Iran needed to demonstrate “heroic flexibility” to end its economic problems. But in yet another example of the double standards that dominate Tehran’s political culture, at the same time that the ayatollah was backing his president’s diplomatic initiative, he also appointed Ali Shamkhani, one of the founders of Iran’s nuclear program, as the new head of Iran’s National Security Council.

So long as Mr. Shamkhani and Ayatollah Khamenei continue to dominate Iran’s national-security establishment, Mr. Rouhani’s room for maneuver in future negotiations with the West will be very limited indeed

Hardliners have called the deal a "poisoned chalice" and an agreement that "practically tramples on Iran's enrichment rights."

Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman of Iran's nuclear agency, was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying Saturday information regarding Iran's new generation of centrifuges has been made available to the IAEA, in compliance with the IAEA deal.