Iran’s foreign minister has been accused of appeasing “the Great Satan” after“accidentally” shaking hands with the US president, Barack Obama, in the corridors of the UN headquarters in New York.

Mohammad Javad Zarif, the head of Iran’s diplomacy apparatus who played an instrumental role as the country’s chief nuclear negotiator in securing the landmark nuclear agreement this summer, shook hands with Obama on Monday on the sidelines of the UN general assembly.

It was the first time a high-ranking Iranian official had shaken hands with an American president in over three decades. Iran’s semi-official Isna news agency said the two men ran into each other after the address of Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, to the general assembly while Zarif was on his way out of the UN headquarters. 

“It is the first time in the history of Iranian-American bilateral relations that an Islamic republic official has met with the president of the United States of American face to face and exchanged greetings,” Isna said.

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