Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had a phone conversation Wednesday evening with his outgoing Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani to discuss the "various regional and international issues" the two countries have in common.

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Erdogan praised Rouhani's efforts over the past eight years to "deepen the strategic relations" between Ankara and Tehran and said that "Iran plays a vital role in resolving regional problems."

The Turkish president emphasized the need for future cooperation anv vowed to "continue to work together to resolve the crises, including in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan."

Rouhani, who is slated to leave office on Aug. 5, also emphasized Turkey and Iran's critical role in resolving problems in the region. "We have excellent ties with Turkey … and we are committed to cooperating on issues affecting the Muslim world, and helping resolve regional problems through dialogue and negotiations," he said.

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Speaking during a weekly cabinet meeting Wednesday, Rouhani said: "We agree with the general framework by the Europeans."

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France, Britain, and Germany had urged Tehran to enter talks about a new arrangement on the nuclear deal.

Rouhani said the plan included preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, securing its support for regional peace, lifting US sanctions and the immediate resumption of Iranian oil exports.

He said the plan could have been discussed during his New York visit last week for the UN General Assembly, but that US President Donald Trump scuppered chances by openly threatening to impose more sanctions.

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But the limits of Iran's ability to go it alone were on display at the United Nations this week as it engaged in a flurry of diplomatic outreach amid increasingly crippling isolation by US sanctions that are eating into its economy and its ability to sell its oil.

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For months, the European nations that signed Iran's nuclear accord have been trying – unsuccessfully – to find ways around US sanctions that were imposed after President Donald Trump pulled the US out of the agreement last year. Trump argues the deal, completed under the Obama administration, fell far short of the curbs needed to block Tehran's regional ambitions.

Addressing world leaders Wednesday, Rouhani's message pointed a clear way toward easing tensions and resuming negotiations: "Stop the sanctions."

But before getting to that, he opened his speech by paying homage "to all the freedom-seekers of the world who do not bow to oppression and aggression." He also slammed "US-and Zionist-imposed plans" against the Palestinians. Such language characterizes Iran's self-styled championing of Islamic causes worldwide.

Away from the podium this week, Iran has been engaging in nothing short of a public relations blitz with America's biggest news outlets. Rouhani met with leaders of media organizations including The Associated Press and granted an interview to Fox News as well.

The Tehran government's fraught history with the US has essentially locked it out of the global financial system, making it difficult to find partners, allies and countries willing or even able to do business with it.

Rouhani accused the US of engaging in "merciless economic terrorism" against his country, saying America had resorted to "international piracy by misusing the international banking system" to pressure Iran.

As Iran's nuclear deal with world powers unravels under the weight of Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign, previously unimaginable alliances are emerging between Gulf Arab states and Israel, united by what they see as a common threat.

Across the Middle East, Iran's reach is consequential in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, where proxy wars have taken on a sectarian tone that pits Iran-supported Shiites against Saudi-backed Sunnis.

On the battlefields, Tehran's rivals see it as a menacing and destabilizing force that has exploited failed uprisings, military interventions, and chaos to expand its foothold in Arab states.

Iran counters that it was the US that invaded Iraq and Saudi Arabia that invaded Yemen. In his UN speech, Rouhani pointed to Iran's role in fighting Sunni Muslim extremist groups like the Islamic State and al-Qaida. He described Iran as a "pioneer of freedom-seeking movements in the region."

Iran's elite paramilitary force has led that charge, cementing Tehran's footprint far beyond the country's borders.

The Revolutionary Guard Corps, created after Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution in parallel to the country's armed forces, is effectively a corps of soldiers charged with preserving and advancing the principles of the uprising that created modern Iran.

It answers only to the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and its power is not just theoretical but very real: The force directly oversees the country's ballistic missile program.

It is the Revolutionary Guard Corps that has become a major sticking point in Iran's relations, or lack thereof, with the United States under Donald Trump.

The Trump administration, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel say Iran used money from sanctions relief under the nuclear accord to increase the Revolutionary Guard's budget.

Those nations say any new negotiations must include discussion about the Guard's activities in the region and its missile program, and support for that notion seems to be gaining traction.

This week, Britain, France, and Germany joined the US and other allies in blaming Iran for an attack on Saudi oil sites earlier this month. The implication: That because missiles were involved in those attacks, so was the Guard.

Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York this week, a top Saudi diplomat described Iran as being "obsessed with trying to restore the Persian Empire and trying to take over the region."

"Their constitution calls for the export of the revolution," Adel al-Jubeir said. "They believe that every Shiite belongs to them. They don't respect the sovereignty of nations."

"Iran," he said, "has to decide: Are you a revolution or are you a nation-state?"

As Rouhani departs a city that is effectively enemy territory and goes back home this week, he and Tehran's clerical leadership must decide which of those paths to take: Will they merely confront, as the 1979 revolution did? Or, as nation-states do, will they sit down and talk as well?

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"We'll see what happens," Trump told reporters in New York, a day before the General Debate of the 74^th Session of the UN General Assembly was set to begin.

Last week Trump said that he would prefer not to meet Rouhani at the UN, despite his previous statements saying he was open to meeting the Iranian leader without preconditions.

Trump also imposed heavy sanctions on the Islamic republic over the weekend after an attack launched from Iranian soil hit Saudi oil installations and disrupted exports from Riyadh and caused temporary jitters in the global energy market.

France and Britain were at odds on Monday over who to blame for an attack on Saudi Arabia's oil facilities, potentially complicating efforts to defuse tensions between the United States and Iran at the UN General Assembly.

France has led a European push to try to defuse tensions between Washington and Tehran and sees the annual gathering of global leaders as an opportunity to revive diplomacy.

But those efforts have stalled, with Iran reducing its commitments to a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, from which Washington withdrew last year, and the United States refusing to ease sanctions that have strangled its oil exports, a mainstay of the Iranian economy.

Hopes at the end of August that Trump and Iranian Rouhani could meet at the United Nations now seem slim.

"We haven't received any requests this time, yet, for a meeting and we have made it clear a request alone will not do the job," Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told reporters in New York. "A negotiation has to be for a reason, for an outcome, not just for a handshake."

He said there were prerequisites for a meeting and then there could be a meeting between Iran, the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Russia, and China.

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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani urged the United States to end its policy of "maximum pressure" on his country, and reiterated threats that Tehran would cut its commitments to a 2015 nuclear deal further if necessary, state TV reported.

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Last year, the United States pulled out of the nuclear deal, under which Iran agreed to curbs on its atomic program in return for access to world trade. Washington has since imposed what the administration calls a policy of "maximum pressure," including sanctions aimed at halting all Iranian oil exports.

Iran has responded with a series of steps to reduce its compliance with the nuclear deal, although it says that it still aims to keep it in place.

Trump has suggested he would be willing to hold talks with Iran to reach a new deal. Iran has long said that talks are impossible unless Washington lifts its sanctions first.

Bolton, a hardliner who held senior positions in the George W. Bush administration, left his position on Tuesday. Trump tweeted that he had fired him after rejecting some of his advice.

"The departure of US National Security Adviser John Bolton from President Donald Trump's administration will not push Iran to reconsider talking with the US," state news agency IRNA quoted Tehran's United Nations envoy Majid Takht-Ravanchi as saying.

He added there was no room for talks with the United States while sanctions against Iran remain in place, IRNA said.

Rouhani repeated previous Iranian demands that Washington relaxes its policies.

"The United States should understand that militancy has no profit, and must abandon its policy of maximum pressure on Iran," he was quoted as saying. "Iran's commitments to the nuclear deal are proportional to other parties and we will take further steps if necessary."

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"It seems in some ways that Iran is inching toward that place where we could have talks and hopefully it'll play out that way," Esper said at the Royal United Services Institute think tank in London.

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Friction between the two countries has grown since Trump last year withdrew from a 2015 international accord under which Iran had agreed to rein in its atomic program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions.

Washington has since renewed and intensified its sanctions, slashing Iran's crude oil sales by more than 80%

Rouhani on Wednesday said Iran would take another step away from the 2015 deal by starting to develop centrifuges to speed up its uranium enrichment, but he also gave European powers two more months to try to save the multilateral pact.

Separately, the United States refused to ease its economic sanctions on Iran, imposed fresh ones designed to choke off the smuggling of Iranian oil and rebuffed, but did not rule out, a French plan to give Tehran a $15 billion credit line.

The moves suggested Iran, the United States and the major European powers may be leaving the door open for diplomacy to try resolve a dispute over Iran's nuclear program even as they largely stuck to entrenched positions.

Trump on Wednesday left open the possibility of a meeting with Rouhani at the upcoming UN General Assembly in New York.

Asked about the possibility of such a meeting, Trump told White House reporters anything was possible. "Sure, anything's possible. They would like to be able to solve their problem," he said, referring to inflation in Iran. "We could solve it in 24 hours."

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The Israeli leader, who earlier in the day asserted that this was not the time to hold talks with Iran, said he recognized the possibility of a Trump-Rouhani meeting, and that it was not up to him to tell Trump with whom he could meet.

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"I'm sure Trump will take a much tougher position," Netanyahu told reporters traveling with him to London, an official in the prime minister's office later said.

This was more restrained than a statement he made earlier in the day when he was to meet with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson: "This is not the time to hold talks with Iran. This is the time to increase the pressure on Iran."

On Wednesday, Trump left the door open to a possible meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the upcoming UN General Assembly in New York, saying: "Anything's possible. They would like to be able to solve their problems."

Netanyahu later met US Defense Secretary Mark Esper.

Tehran has rejected any negotiations with Washington unless Trump drops sanctions that he imposed after quitting the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, an agreement Netanyahu had savaged as inadequate.

Iran has said that starting on Friday, it would begin developing centrifuges to speed up the enrichment of uranium, which can produce fuel for power plants or for atomic bombs. The Iranians deny seeking nuclear weapons.

The centrifuge move would be Iran's latest reduction of its commitments to restrict nuclear projects under the 2015 deal.

Netanyahu called this "another violation, another provocation by Iran, this time in the realm of its quest for nuclear weaponry."

Meeting Johnson at 10 Downing Street, Netanyahu praised the politically embattled British leader for his "staunch stance against anti-Semitism and ... support for Israel's security."

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Hassan Rouhani's comments came a day after Trump said on Monday that there's a "really good chance" the two could meet on their nuclear impasse after a surprise intervention by French President Emmanuel Macron during the G-7 summit to try to bring Washington and Tehran together after decades of conflict.

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"Without the US's withdrawal of sanctions, we will not witness any positive development," Rouhani said in a televised speech on Tuesday, adding that Washington "holds the key" as to what happens next.

"If someone intends to make it as just a photo op with Rouhani, that is not possible," he said.

Earlier on Monday, Rouhani expressed readiness to negotiate a way out of the crisis following America's pullout from the nuclear deal.

"If I knew that going to a meeting and visiting a person would help my country's development and resolve the problems of the people, I would not miss it," he had said. "Even if the odds of success are not 90% but are 20% or 10%, we must move ahead with it. We should not miss opportunities."

Rouhani also shielded his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, against criticism from hard-liners over his surprise visit on Sunday to France's Biarritz, where leaders of the G-7 were meeting.

Iran's English-language Press TV issued a vague, anonymous statement later on Monday, rejecting Macron's initiative.

Macron said he hoped Trump and Rouhani could meet within weeks in hopes of saving the 2015 nuclear deal that Tehran struck with world powers, but which the US unilaterally withdrew from last year. Under the deal, Iran agreed to limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

On Tuesday, Macron acknowledged his efforts to bring Iran and the US together are "fragile" but said that he still sees a "possible path" to rapprochement between the two.

Inviting Zarif to the G-7 summit as a surprise guest was a risky diplomatic maneuver but it helped create "the possible conditions of a useful meeting," Macron said.

It's France's responsibility to play the "role of the balancing power," Macron said, adding that his efforts allowed hope for a "de-escalation" of tensions.

Since the US pullout from the nuclear deal, Iran has lost billions of dollars in business deals allowed by the accord as the US re-imposed and escalated sanctions largely blocking Tehran from selling crude oil abroad, a crucial source of hard currency for the Islamic Republic.

Rouhani's U-turn can be seen as a result of pressure from hard-liners in the Iranian establishment who oppose taking a softer tone toward the West.

But it could also reflect that the paradigm of a grand photo-op summit does not necessarily appeal to Rouhani, whose signature accomplishment was the nuclear deal, which started unraveling with Trump's pullout.

The hard-line Javan daily, which is close to Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard, warned Rouhani in large font on its Tuesday front page: "Mr. Rouhani, photo diplomacy will not develop the country."

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Basic logic should have ruled out the report from the outset. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah's promise that his organization would target IDF soldiers patrolling the border would not have led the army to send more troops there. The IDF would instead reduce its visibility to minimize the number of available targets. Assuming there will always be mistakes, the correct equation is fewer soldiers equals fewer opportunities for Hezbollah – in other words, less risk that it will be able to carry out Nasrallah's wishes.

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And yet, some intelligence and air force units did receive reinforcements – while certain movements near the border were restricted and alert levels were raised significantly.

At this stage, the IDF is primarily focused on intelligence gathering in an effort to understand what Hezbollah intends to do and when; in the assumption that quality intelligence will also provide ample advanced warning to help thwart the terrorist organization's plans or mitigate their potential damage.

Hezbollah isn't a crackerjack organization. The revenge attack it will seek to execute won't be pulled out of a hat.

It will be approved after running up an organized chain of command, up until and including Nasrallah. Hezbollah will likely seek out a target that will allow it to hit and more importantly embarrass Israel – but won't force a response strong enough to spark a conflagration that Hezbollah doesn't want right now. This is a delicate equation, which Nasrallah himself complicated even further on Sunday by adding more variables.

An unexpected PR win

While Israel accused the Iranian Quds Force, under the command of Qasem Soleimani, of planning and funding the terrorist plot that was foiled in a drone attack in south Beirut on Sunday, and that the people killed were members of an Iranian militia, Nasrallah claimed the targeted building was a Hezbollah media center and that the people killed were Hezbollah operatives. By doing so, not only did Nasrallah unnecessarily incriminate himself, but he also officially admitted to what Israel has long argued – that Hezbollah is trying to build a new terrorist front on the Golan Heights – giving Israel an unexpected public relations victory.

Perhaps Nasrallah did this as an excuse for vowing a reprisal attack, but it's certainly possible his anxiety stems from a different source: the drone attack itself, which he attributed to Israel. If the reports are to be believed, then it's quite conceivable what we've heard is merely the tip of the iceberg, and that the actual target was far more significant than a relatively unimportant and only slightly damaged media center. We can deduce, therefore, that the message for Hezbollah was of a different nature. In the past, Israel has avoided kinetic messages, opting instead for other ways to signal to Hezbollah or expose its intentions. In his speech at the United Nations General Assembly last September, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed that Hezbollah was building three precision-missile factories on Lebanese soil. On another occasion, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo transferred tough messages from Jerusalem to Beirut.

From this vantage point, Nasrallah's real equation quite possibly stems from a more obscure context. Perhaps his goal is to set clear boundaries for Israel and deter it from operating on Lebanese soil again. And although it's doubtful Israel will consent to this, the threats emanating from Jerusalem on Monday should be taken with a grain of salt. No one on the Israeli side is gung-ho about a broad war in the north. However, if it is pushed into a corner by a large, mass casualty terrorist attack, Israel's response will have to extend beyond the obligatory and would likely set the wheels in motion for an uncontainable escalation.

Leveraging Trump's meeting with Rouhani

Israel and Hezbollah will grapple with these dilemmas for the foreseeable future. If this wasn't enough, the upcoming general election in Israel will affect how both sides make their decisions. More than a few leaders in modern times have lost their seats due to terror. Yet while this factor will certainly influence the actions of Jerusalem and Beirut, and produce more intense rhetoric, in practice it will also force them to tread more carefully as both are well aware of the potentially devastating consequences.

Paradoxically, Iran could emerge as a moderating force.

If US President Donald Trump's reported meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani ever materializes, Tehran will put on an innocent, pleasant, friendly face – anything to remove the stifling American sanctions and begin rehabilitating the Iranian economy. An escalation of hostilities in the Middle East involving its chief proxy, Hezbollah, isn't convenient for Iran at the moment. Israel needs to exploit this in Washington – not to torpedo the Trump-Rouhani meeting but to leverage it: In the immediate term, to mitigate Hezbollah's response and avoid a possible conflagration; and later on, if and when, to secure a better nuclear deal that doesn't only improve supervision of Iran's nuclear program and facilities, but addresses its ballistic missile program and export of terror across the globe, primarily via Hezbollah.

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Tensions have risen between Iran and the West since last year when the United States pulled out of the nuclear deal with Tehran.

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"Peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, war with Iran is the mother of all wars," Rouhani said at the Foreign Ministry in a speech which also praised Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif after the United States imposed sanctions on him on July 31.

If the United States wants to have negotiations with Iran then it must lift all sanctions, Rouhani said, noting that Iran must be allowed to export oil.

Last month Iran seized the British tanker Stena Impero near the Strait of Hormuz for alleged marine violations, two weeks after British forces captured an Iranian oil tanker near Gibraltar for violating sanctions on Syria.

"A strait for a strait. It can't be that the Strait of Hormuz is free for you and the Strait of Gibraltar is not free for us," Rouhani said.

Approximately one-fifth of the world's oil traffic passes through the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

Iran seized an Iraqi oil tanker in the Gulf on Wednesday for allegedly smuggling fuel and detained seven crewmen, Iran's state media reported.

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