The organized Iranian Jewish commun-ity in the United States declined an invitation to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during his visit to New York.

The Iranian American Jewish Federation received an official invitation to meet with the new Iranian president from a senior official at the Iranian mission to the United Nations, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported. The meeting would have included Iranian Foreign Minister Mohamad Zarif and the only Jew in Iran’s 290-member Parliament, Siamak Moreh Sedgh.

The Iranian officials were in New York for this week’s U.N. General Assembly.

Sam Kermanian, a special adviser to the federation, told Haaretz that the group, in consultation with American Jewish leaders, decided not to attend the meeting because it could “send the wrong message to the administration and to American public opinion at this sensitive time.” — jta