According to Robert Windrem of NBC News, an Iranian who witnessed Friday’s historic conversation between the presidents of the United States and Iran “was giddy†describing it a short time later.
Excitement about the diplomatic breakthrough among President Hassan Rouhani’s aides â€" perhaps followed by second thoughts about diplomatic etiquette or how it might play back home â€" could also explain why a rapid-fire series of updates divulging details of the conversation were posted on the @HassanRouhani Twitter account and then deleted a short time later.
A screenshot of an update to a Twitter account maintained in the name of Iran’s president that was posted and then deleted on Friday afternoon.Luckily for posterity, before those updates were removed, and replaced with more sober messages, several followers retweeted them and Andrew Kaczynski of Buzzfeed captured part of the stream in a screenshot.
Before seven updates to a Twitter account run in the name of Iran’s president were deleted Friday afternoon, a Buzzfeed journalist captured them in a screenshot.Another of the deleted updates, captured by The Lede, described the two presidents wishing each other farewell in their own languages. Mr. Rouhani offering the American blessing, “Have a nice day!†and Mr. Obama responding with the Persian word for goodbye, “Khodahafez†â€"literally, “May God protect you.â€
While the brief updates that later replaced those initial messages were generally dry, a hint of the excitement inside the Iranian delegation did seem to infuse one tweet remaining in the @HassanRouhani feed, a photograph of a beaming Mr. Rouhani on board the plane that would take him back home.
The photograph, shot by someone standing directly in front of Mr. Rouhani and quickly posted online, also seemed to confirm that the account, which the Iranian president has not directly acknowledged as his own, is at least run by someone very close to him.
That echoes what the Iranian-American writer Hooman Majd reported earlier this month, after he helped set up an NBC News interview with Mr. Rouhani in Tehran.
As my colleague Thomas Erdbrink reports from Tehran, the flurry of activity on the social network following the phone call ended with the Iranian president’s account retweeting a message from the State Department. That update from Washington hailed the presidential-level dialogue and the meeting on Thursday between Secretary of State John Kerry and Mr. Rouhani’s Twitter-fluent foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif.
A screenshot taken Friday evening of the @HassanRouhani Twitter account maintained in the name of Iran’s president.Robert Mackey also remixes the news on Twitter @robertmackey.
