Obama and Iran's Rowhani in historic phone call

Hundreds of Iranians cheered President Hassan Rowhani on his return from New York on Saturday after his historic phone call with US President Barack Obama, but a smaller number of hardliners shouted "Death to America" and threw eggs and shoes at his official car leaving the airport, Iranian media reported.

While an anticipated handshake between Rowhani and Obama at the UN headquarters failed to materialise, they held a 15-minute call at the end of the Iranian president's trip for the UN General Assembly.

The semi-official Mehr news agency ran pictures of groups of protesters holding up a Death to America placard and banging the sides of Rowhani's limousine. Mehr said one protester threw his shoes at the car, a gesture of deep insult in the Islamic faith.

There has been little reaction so far from Iran's political leaders, but one senior parliamentarian tentatively welcomed Rowhani's conversation with Obama as a sign of the Islamic Republic's "position of authority". The hurriedly arranged phone call was the first conversation between Iranian and US leaders since 1979, when President Jimmy Carter spoke over the phone with Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.

A senior Obama administration official said the White House had expressed the president's interest in meeting Rowhani to the Iranians this week, but were surprised when they contacted the US side to suggest the phone call. Obama placed the call from the Oval Office around 2.30pm, joined by aides and a translator.

The bulk of the call focused on the nuclear dispute, and Obama also raised the cases of three Americans in Iran, one missing and two others detained.