From Al-Monitor:
...a spokesman for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told Al-Monitor Monday that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has been invited to attend a luncheon that Ban is hosting for visiting heads of state Tuesday. UN spokesman Martin Nesky said he wasn’t yet sure if Rouhani plans to attend. Rouhani is due to arrive in New York later on Monday.
President Obama plans to attend the lunch, following a meeting with Ban on Tuesday, the White House said last week.
http://backchannel.al-monitor.com/...
More from The Telegraph:
The likely rendezvous - over a lunch at the United Nations - follows an Iranian diplomatic offensive designed to bring the impasse over Tehran's nuclear programme to an end.
Both Barack Obama and Hassan Rouhani, a comparative moderate elected in June, will address the United Nations general assembly on Tuesday with speeches expected to strike a markedly different tone to the often angry rhetoric that has accompanied eight years of stalled nuclear talks, Western sanctions and speculation about US air strikes.
Whether or not the two presidents meet, John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, is firmly scheduled to meet his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif, in what would be the first foreign minister level meeting between the two countries since 2000.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/...
The lunch invite from Ban Ki-Moon is going to make it hard for Neocon lizard people to criticize the meeting, though I'm sure they'll try. I can already hear John McCain saying, "when he gets there, the President ought to tell Rouhani, 'blah blah blah...or else!'" Amirite?