The White House said on Monday that neither Iran’s Hassan Rouhani nor Russia’s Vladimir Putin feature on President Barack Obama’s "dance card" of meetings with foreign leaders at the UN next week.

The White House said on Monday that neither Iran's Hassan Rouhani nor Russia's Vladimir Putin feature on President Barack Obama's "dance card" of meetings with foreign leaders at the UN next week.

I don't know that either of those individuals will appear on the president's dance card next week," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said when asked about potential meetings involving Obama and Putin or Rouhani.

But since the White House has yet to release Obama's official program for his stay in New York, such meetings cannot be definitively ruled out.

Speculation about possible talks between Obama and Rouhani in particular has been mounting because the counterparts spoke by phone last year on the sidelines of the annual United Nations General Assembly.

Political sensitivities, as nuclear negotiations reach a critical stage, and the US intervention in Iran's neighborhood against Takfiri militants (ISIL) in Iraq and in future in Syria, may augur against any direct contact between Obama and Rouhani at the UN this time around.

Earlier on Monday Supreme leader of Islamic Revolution, Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei warned that the US seeks military presence in the Middle East under the pretext of “fighting terrorism”.

Meanwhile, as he stressed that only the Iraqi army and nationa are who crushed ISIL and not the US airstrikes, the Iranian leader said Tehran rejected a US-led coalition against ISIL.

Putin and Obama last met informally on the sidelines at a lunch for world leaders at the 70th anniversary commemorations of the D-Day landings in Normandy, France, in June.

Since then, Washington has imposed several rounds of sanctions on Moscow to punish what it sees is its "brazen" military interference in Ukraine.