Abedin Taherkenareh / EPA

Former chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani, center, arrives at a conference in Tehran on Thursday where he announced his candidacy for the June presidential election. Rowhani is considered a moderate who could work with the West.

Hassan Rowhani, a former Iranian nuclear negotiator, announced on Thursday he would run for president - becoming the most moderate contender so far to bid to succeed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a June election dominated by conservatives.

The 64-year-old was head of the powerful Supreme National Security Council under presidents Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, considered a master of realpolitik rather than an ideologue, and Mohammad Khatami, who pushed for wide-ranging social and political reforms.

Rowhani, a Muslim cleric, presided over talks with Britain, France and Germany that saw Iran agree to suspend uranium enrichment-related activities between 2003 and 2005.

He resigned after Ahmadinejad took office in August that year. The nuclear work was resumed and Rowhani was derided for being too accommodating in negotiations.

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At schools, in shops, and on the streets of big cities and small towns, daily life plays out in Iran.

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During Ahmadinejad's two terms in office, tensions with the West over Iran's nuclear program have worsened, with the United States and Europe imposing sanctions on its oil and banks over suspicions Tehran is seeking atomic arms, which it denies.

"We need a new management for the country but not based on quarrelling, inconsistency and eroding domestic capacity, but through unity, consensus and attracting honest and efficient people," Rowhani told a gathering of supporters on Thursday, Iran's Mehr news agency reported.

A former Western ambassador to Iran who had dealings with Rowhani during the Khatami administration described him as "approachable and no-nonsense," likely to be "a calm, orthodox, efficient and straightforward servant ... and less a charismatic or an independent figure."

With nuclear policy directed by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rather than the president, the election is not likely to produce any tangible policy shift there.

"My government will be one of prudence and hope and my message is about saving the economy, reviving ethics and interaction with the world," Rowhani said in a critique of Ahmadinejad's economic record.

Hooman Majd, a New York-based Iranian-American journalist and author, said Rowhani -- head of an Iranian think-tank, the Center for Strategic Research -- might attract some voters looking for change, without being radical enough to risk being banned from the election.

"Rowhani has been a loyal soldier of Khamenei and is not considered a threat to the system. I think it would be too much for the Guardian Council to disqualify someone like that," Majd said.

Khamenei's close advisers plan to put forward their own candidate, hoping to minimize the chances of the next president mounting challenges to the leader's authority, as they accuse Ahmadinejad of doing, especially during his second term.

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Diplomat: Iran, West still 'a long way apart' 

EPA / Mohamad Fatemi

A woman sits on rubble in Shonbeh, Bushehr province, in southern Iran on Tuesday after a magnitude-6.3 earthquake devastated villages, killed 37 people and injured more than 900. Despite sitting on an earthquake hotbed, Iran said it would continue to build nuclear reactors.

Iran plans to build more nuclear reactors in an earthquake-prone coastal area, Iranian media said on Wednesday, a day after a strong tremor struck the region close to its only existing such plant.

Tuesday's 6.3-magnitude quake hit 55 miles southeast of the port of Bushehr, killing 37 people and injuring more than 900 as it flattened small villages. The dead included eight children under the age of 10.

But the nuclear power station 11 miles south of Bushehr was unaffected, according to Iranian officials and the Russian company that built the facility.

Tehran has repeatedly rejected safety concerns about Bushehr, which is located in a highly seismic area on Iran's gulf coast and began operations in 2011 after decades of delays.

The head of the Islamic state's Atomic Energy Organization said hours after the earthquake that more reactors would be built there.

EPA / Abedin Taherkenareh

The Bushehr nuclear power station is shown in 2010, a year before it opened. Iran says the reactor was not damaged in Tuesday's powerful earthquake, but its location atop a fault zone has caused concern. Nonetheless, the country says it will continue to build nuclear plants in the region.

"This earthquake had no impact on the Bushehr nuclear power plant installation," Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani told state television late on Tuesday in comments published by the semi-official Mehr News Agency on Wednesday.

"Not only was the power plant not producing electricity or sending it to the grid at the time, but even while operating the Bushehr power plant has been designed to withstand earthquakes of more than 8.0 on the Richter scale," he said.

The Bushehr site is capable of holding six power reactors and construction of two more units of at least 1,000 megawatts will start in the "near future" there, he said. Iran has identified 16 sites elsewhere in the country suitable for other atomic plants.

Iran sits on major fault lines and has suffered several devastating earthquakes, including a 6.6-magnitude quake in 2003 that flattened the southeastern city of Bam and killed more than 25,000 people. In August, more than 300 people were killed when two quakes struck the country's northwest.

Dozens of aftershocks were detected in the hours following the initial quake, and a 5.2-magnitude quake struck on Wednesday with an epicenter 65 miles from Bushehr, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

About 92 villages were affected by Tuesday's quake, said Mahmoud Mozaffar, a Red Crescent official, Iran's ISNA news agency reported. About 120 people had injuries severe enough to be admitted to hospital, Iranian officials said.

About 800 homes were destroyed, said Hassan Ghadami of Iran's crisis-management organization. Many village homes are built out of mud brick, which can crumble easily.

Initial damage was estimated at $43 million, provincial official Shapour Rostami said.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Wednesday that Iranian authorities had made no request for international assistance. Iran's Red Crescent had sent 100 relief workers and three helicopters from neighboring provinces to the area, OCHA said.

Slideshow: Everyday life in Iran

At schools, in shops, and on the streets of big cities and small towns, daily life plays out in Iran.

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Diplomat: Iran, West 'a long way apart'

Mehdi Ghasemi / ISNA via AP, file

Two technicians in Iran adjust their protective wear alongside a container of yellow cake uranium.

Iran said on Tuesday it had started production at two uranium mines and a yellow-cake plant, declaring that Western opposition would not slow its nuclear program days after talks between Tehran and world powers failed to reach an accord.

The country opened the Saghand 1 and 2 uranium mines in the central city of Yazd, which will extract uranium from a depth of more than 1,100 feet, and the Shahid Rezaeinejad yellow-cake plant at Ardakan to mark Iran's National Nuclear Technology Day, state news agency IRNA said.

The Ardakan plant is capable of producing 66 tons of yellow cake -- raw uranium -- annually, IRNA said.

The United States and some allies suspect Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons capability, but Iran insists that its atomic program, including its enrichment of uranium, is for purely peaceful purposes. Talks between Iran and world powers held in Kazakhstan last week failed to reach a breakthrough.

"They [world powers] tried their utmost to prevent Iran from going nuclear, but Iran has gone nuclear," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a speech at Iran's Atomic Energy Organization on Tuesday.

"This nuclear technology and power and science has been institutionalized. … All the stages are in our control, and every day that we go forward a new horizon opens up before the Iranian nation."

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Diplomat: Iran, West 'a long way apart'

Full Iran coverage from NBC News

Shamil Zhumatov / Reuters

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili prays at a mosque in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on Friday.

News analysis

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- An air of cautious optimism hung over Almaty, Kazakstan, on Friday as Western and Iranian negotiators began the first day of another round of nuclear talks.

After Friday’s talks had ended for the day, however, a Western diplomat said the sides still had work to do.

"We had a long and substantial discussion on the issues, but we remain a long way apart on the substance,” the diplomat said. “We are now evaluating the situation and will meet again tomorrow."

The six powers – the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany – met Iranian officials with the aim of settling a decade-long tussle over Tehran's nuclear program.

Iran has resisted pressure -- and hardening economic sanctions -- for years arguing its uranium enrichment program is for peaceful purposes and therefore should be allowed to continue.

During the last meetings in February, the world powers appeared to have watered down their demands and offer mild relief to sanctions that have been strangling Iran’s economy.

Western diplomats were hoping for a discussion of the specific points of their proposals, such as closing a nuclear facility and shipping some enriched uranium stockpiles abroad in return for easing some sanctions.

Iranian officials were caught off guard by what many view as the West’s relatively generous offer.

“For the first time during any of the international nuclear talks, we witnessed signals that the other side is acting in good faith,” Iran’s foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi told a news conference in Tehran on March 10, referring to the last discussions also held in Almaty.

“We hope they continue to do so,” he added.

Western diplomats, speaking on the condition of anonymity after the February talks, also said they were cautiously optimistic. 

This attitude comes after a string of failed talks.

Both sides have accused the other of not being realistic or serious about wanting to make a deal. Throughout, the West has charged Iran with delaying tactics, and of saying one thing then doing another. 

Both sides are in a sticky spot. 

President Barack Obama came to office on a mandate to end two wars, not to open up another front. So military action against Iran to halt a nuclear weapons program could prove unpopular in the United States. 

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At schools, in shops, and on the streets of big cities and small towns, daily life plays out in Iran.

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Iran is also walking a tightrope: Israel has consistently said its patience with diplomacy is running out and it may resort to military strikes on Iran.

Tehran is also under pressure from sanctions. The economic distress could spill over into massive street protests, something the government definitely does not want to see in the run-up to June elections. 

Yet another issue that hangs over talks: the war in Syria.  

Iran is one of the Syrian government’s most important backers: Several senior Iranian military officials have already been killed in Damascus. Syrian rebels have accused the West of standing by as the regime of Bashar Assad kills tens of thousands of his own citizens. 

Obama’s reluctance to arm the rebels in Syria is partly because it would scupper negations with Iran over its nuclear program, according to foreign policy experts and some Western diplomats. 

Reuters contributed to this report.

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This story was originally published on Fri Apr 5, 2013 10:56 AM EDT

Ebrahim Noroozi / AP

Iranians fly kites during the ancient festival of Sizdeh Bedar, or public picnic day, at the Pardisan park, western Tehran, Iran, on April 2, 2013. The tradition of picnic day has occurred since ancient times in Iran, with families spending time outdoors on the thirteenth day of the Iranian calendar. Sizdah is the Persian word for thirteen.

Ebrahim Noroozi / AP

An Iranian woman smokes a water pipe during the ancient festival of Sizdeh Bedar in a park in western Tehran, Iran, on April 2.

Ebrahim Noroozi / AP

Iranians pose for pictures while they celebrate Sizdeh Bedar in a park in western Tehran, Iran, on April 2.

Ebrahim Noroozi / AP

An Iranian woman rides a bicycle as a man stands with his horse to lease at a park, during the ancient festival of Sizdeh Bedar, in western Tehran, Iran, on April 2.

Iranians headed outside to celebrate the ancient festival of Sizdeh Bedar, or public picnic day, in Tehran on Tuesday. The tradition of picnic day has occurred since ancient times in Iran, with families spending time outdoors on the thirteenth day of the Iranian calendar. Sizdah is the Persian word for thirteen.

--The Associated Press

Ebrahim Noroozi / AP

An Iranian girl flies a kite in ancient festival of Sizdeh Bedar at the Pardisan park, western Tehran, Iran, on April 2.

Previously on PhotoBlog:

• Scene from an Iranian execution: Condemned man lays his head on hangman's shoulder
• Iranians commemorate martyrdom of prophet's grandson
• Iran urges baby boom
• Iranians celebrate festival of fire

Ian Kursheed / Reuters

A boy fills the tank of a motorbike with smuggled petrol near a roadside shop in Quetta, Pakistan, on Feb. 13, 2013.

JOGAR, Pakistan -- Some of the contraband is spirited across the mountains in Pepsi bottles carried by child smugglers. Yet more is loaded into pickup trucks or siphoned into barrels and strapped onto mules.

So lucrative are the returns that even seasoned opium traffickers are abandoning their traditional cargo to grab a share of Pakistan's closest thing to an oil boom: a roaring trade in illicit Iranian diesel.

As Western powers tighten sanctions on Iran, an unexpected set of beneficiaries has emerged in the hard-scrabble Pakistani province of Baluchistan -- smugglers lured by surging profits for black market fuel.

"Why smuggle opium when you can earn as much money by smuggling diesel? It's much safer," said a former opium trader from the Pakistani town of Mand, a smuggling hub near the Iranian border.

"Besides, I'm now called a successful businessman -- not a drug dealer," said the man, who gave his name as Hamid.

Ghulam Ali sells the smuggled products openly in Quetta, the main city in Baluchistan. "Vehicles loaded with Iranian diesel and petrol provide us with fuel as a routine matter -- there are no hindrances to its transportation," he said.

Diesel smuggling has long been a part of the illicit trade in Baluchistan, where a thriving trade in goods -- from guns and narcotics to duty-free cigarettes and second-hand Toyotas -- constitutes one the arteries of the globalized criminal economy.

'Why wouldn't I?'
In Nushki, a small town on one of the roads cutting through Baluchistan's arid moonscape, diesel traders preparing to drive to the Iran border had little to fear from the law.

"Bringing in fuel this way is so much cheaper and makes great profits," said one of the transporters, a burly man wearing a gold watch. "Even though there are security check points at all these border towns inside Pakistan, no one ever stops me. Why wouldn't I do this?"

Smugglers have gone into overdrive since late September, when growing pressure from Western sanctions caused the Iranian rial to lose 40 percent of its value against the dollar in a week, making diesel even cheaper for Pakistani buyers.

Iran sets its diesel price at 4,500 Iranian rials (about 15 cents) a liter -- less than the price of mineral water.

In Pakistan, a liter of smuggled diesel can sell for 104 rupees a liter ($1.06) -- cheaper than the official price of 112 rupees a liter.

At Jogar, a border pass in granite mountains, children trek across the hills bearing Iranian diesel in Pepsi bottles. Some is transported on donkeys.

On the Baluchistan coast, smuggling proceeds on an industrial scale as diesel arrives at ports via vessels plying the Gulf of Oman.

Like tributaries feeding a river, individual smugglers bring their barrels to depots, where the cargo is aggregated into tanker trucks.

In January, the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction warned that fuel purchases made for Afghan security forces using U.S. government funds may have included Iranian petroleum products, which would be a violation of Washington's own sanctions on Tehran.

Iran's attempts to boost formal energy ties with Pakistan are also a concern for the U.S. government. Washington has voiced opposition to plans to build a pipeline through Baluchistan to tap Iranian natural gas, which Pakistan sees as a possible answer to its chronic electricity shortages.

Iran's government, already battling Western moves to restrict supplies of gasoline and other refined products, has sought to stem smuggling by introducing a system of smart cards to ration subsidized fuel.

In Pakistan, authorities admit they are overwhelmed. Ibrahim Vighio, a senior customs official in Quetta, said the government plans to form a new 1,000-strong anti-smuggling unit. "We have lack of forces, proper weapons and equipment to stop the smuggling," he said.

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Maysun / EPA, file

Syrian Army fighters preparing themselves to shoot against Syrian Army positions in Aleppo, Syria, March 11.

UNITED NATIONS -- Iran, Syria and North Korea on Friday prevented the adoption of the first international treaty to regulate the $70 billion global conventional arms trade, complaining that it was flawed and failed to ban weapons sales to rebel groups.

To get around the blockade, British U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant sent the draft treaty to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and asked him on behalf of Mexico, Australia and a number of others to put it to a swift vote in the General Assembly.

U.N. diplomats said the 193-nation General Assembly could put the draft treaty to a vote as early as Tuesday.

The head of the U.S. delegation, Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Countryman, told a group of reporters, "We look forward to this treaty being adopted very soon by the United Nations General Assembly."

He declined to predict the result of a vote but said it would be a "substantial majority" in favor.

"A good, strong treaty has been blocked," said Britain's chief delegate, Joanne Adamson. "Most people in the world want regulation and those are the voices that need to be heard."

"This is success deferred," she added.

The point of an arms trade treaty is to set standards for all cross-border transfers of conventional weapons.

It would also create binding requirements for states to review all cross-border arms contracts to ensure arms will not be used in human rights abuses, terrorism or violations of humanitarian law.

NRA: Treaty threatens gun rights
Arms control activists and human rights groups say a treaty is needed to halt the uncontrolled flow of arms and ammunition that they say fuels wars, atrocities and rights abuses.

"The world has been held hostage by three states," said Anna Macdonald, an arms control expert at humanitarian agency Oxfam. "We have known all along that the consensus process was deeply flawed and today we see it is actually dysfunctional."

"Countries such as Iran, Syria and DPRK (North Korea) should not be allowed to dictate to the rest of the world how the sale of weapons should be regulated," she added. 

The National Rifle Association opposes the treaty and has vowed to fight to prevent its ratification if it reaches Washington. The NRA says the treaty would undermine domestic gun-ownership rights.

The American Bar Association, an attorneys' lobby group, has said that the treaty would not impact the right to bear arms.

Jim Watson / AFP - Getty Images

Demonstrators from Amnesty International call for a global arms treaty in a protest outside the White House, March 22.

The main reason the arms trade talks took place at all is that the United States - the world's biggest arms exporter - reversed U.S. policy on the issue after President Barack Obama was first elected and decided in 2009 to support an arms treaty.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had told Iran's Press TV that Tehran supported the arms trade treaty. But Iranian U.N. Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee told the conference that he could not accept the treaty in its current form.

"It is a matter of deep regret that genuine efforts of many countries for a robust, balanced and non-discriminatory treaty were ignored.,” he said.

One of those flaws was its failure to ban sales of weapons to groups that commit "acts of aggression," ostensibly referring to rebel groups, he said. The current draft does not ban transfers to armed groups but says all arms transfers should be subjected to rigorous risk and human rights assessments first.

Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari echoed the Iranian concerns. "Unfortunately our national concerns were not taken into consideration," he said.

North Korea's delegate voiced similar complaints, suggesting it was a discriminatory treaty.

Russia and China made clear they would not have blocked it but voiced serious reservations about the text and its failure to get consensus.

A Russian delegate told the conference that Moscow would have to think hard about signing it if it were approved.

If adopted by the General Assembly, the pact will need to be signed and ratified by at least 50 states to enter into force.

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'Not good enough': Rights groups blast draft of arms trade treaty

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Jason Reed / Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meets with Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad, Iraq, March 24, 2013.

Secretary of State John Kerry made an unannounced visit to Iraq on Sunday and said he told Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of his concern about Iranian flights over Iraq carrying arms to Syria.

Washington believes such flights and overland transfers take place nearly every day and help Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his efforts to crush a two-year-old revolt against his rule, said a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Kerry said he had told Maliki the Iranian flights through Iraqi airspace were "problematic".

"Anything that supports President Assad is problematic," Kerry told reporters. "I made it very clear to the prime minister that the overflights from Iran ... are in fact helping to sustain President Assad and his regime."

Speaking before the meeting, the U.S. official said the Iraqi government had inspected only two flights since last July and that Kerry would argue Iraq did not deserve a role in talks about neighboring Syria's future unless it tried to stop the suspected arms flow.

Iraqi officials denied allowing the transfer of weapons from Iran to Syria through Iraqi airspace. Abbas al-Bayati, a member of the Security and Defence parliamentary committee, said: "We have done our duty by randomly inspecting a number of Iranian flights and we did not find any leaked or smuggled weapons."

"If the U.S. is keen to push us to do more they have to give us the information that they have relating to this," he said.

More than a decade after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, Iraq still struggles with insurgents, sectarian friction and political feuds among Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish factions who share power in the government of Shi'ite premier Maliki.

Sunni Islamist insurgents linked to al Qaeda and invigorated by the war next door in Syria - where Sunni rebels are battling Assad, an ally of Shi'ite Iran - are regaining ground in Iraq and have stepped up attacks on Shi'ite targets in recent months in an attempt to provoke a wider sectarian confrontation.

Kerry held talks with representatives of all three communities, including Osama al-Nujaifi, the Sunni speaker of parliament.

He also spoke by telephone to Massoud Barzani, president of Iraq's Kurdish region, whose regional government is pressing ahead with plans to build an oil pipeline to Turkey that Washington fears could lead to the break-up of Iraq.

According to reporters at a picture-taking session at the start of Kerry's talks with Maliki, the U.S. diplomat appeared to joke that Hillary Clinton, his predecessor, had said Iraq would do whatever Washington asked.

"The Secretary told me that you're going to do everything that I say," Kerry said, according to the reporters.

"We won't do it," Maliki, also joking, replied, the reporters said.

SUICIDE BLASTS

In his talks with Maliki, Kerry also asked the Iraqi prime minister and his cabinet to reconsider a decision to postpone local elections in two Sunni-majority provinces, Anbar and Nineveh, the U.S. official said.

The Iraqi cabinet last week postponed the votes, which were due on April 20, for up to six months because of threats to electoral workers and violence there - a step Washington believes will only increase tensions.

While violence has fallen from the height of the sectarian slaughter that killed tens of thousands in 2006-2007, insurgents have carried out at least one major attack a month since U.S. forces left. Bombings and killings still happen daily, often aimed at Shi'ite areas and local security forces.

More than a dozen car bombs and suicide blasts tore through Shi'ite Muslim districts in the Iraqi capital Baghdad and other areas on Tuesday, killing nearly 60 people on the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam.

Further complicating security, thousands of Sunni protesters have rallied in Anbar against Maliki, whose Shi'ite-led government they accuse of marginalizing their minority sect since the fall of Sunni strongman Saddam.

Additional reporting by Suadad al-Salhy

Larry Downing / Reuters

U.S. President Barack Obama ended his Middle East trip with a visit to the ancient city of Petra, Jordan, Saturday.

PETRA, Jordan -- President Barack Obama marveled at the sights of Jordan's ancient city of Petra on Saturday as he wrapped up a four-day Middle East tour by setting aside weighty diplomatic matters and playing tourist for a day.

The visit followed a trip to Israel and the Palestinian Territories that was capped by Obama's brokering of a rapprochement between Israel and Turkey, but which offered little more than symbolic gestures toward Middle East peacemaking.

Before heading to Petra, Obama used his stop in Jordan to ratchet up criticism of Syrian President Bashar Assad, but he stopped short of promising military aid to Syrian rebels to help end a two-year-old civil war that has claimed 70,000 lives.

U.S. officials privately voiced satisfaction with the results of Obama's first foreign trip of his second term, but the president's aides had set expectations so low that it was not hard to proclaim it a mission accomplished.

Shifting into sightseeing mode on Saturday, Obama flew by helicopter to Petra and took a walking tour of the restored ruins of a city more than 2,000 years old which is half-carved into sandstone cliffs.

Ordinary tourists had been cleared out for the president's visit, and guards with assault weapons dogged his every step.

"This is pretty spectacular," the president, wearing sunglasses, khaki trousers and a dark jacket, said as he craned his neck to look up at the Treasury, a towering rose-red façade cut into a mountain. "It's amazing."

The U.S. president arrived in Jordan on Friday after an unexpected diplomatic triumph in Israel, where he announced a breakthrough in relations between Israel and Turkey after a telephone conversation between the countries' prime ministers.

Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu apologized on behalf of his country for the killing of nine Turkish citizens in a 2010 naval raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla, and the two feuding U.S. allies agreed to normalize ties.

The 30-minute call was made in a runway trailer at Tel Aviv airport, where Obama and Netanyahu huddled before the president boarded Air Force One for a flight to Jordan.

The rapprochement could help Washington marshal regional efforts to contain spillover from the Syrian civil war and ease Israel's diplomatic isolation in the Middle East as it faces challenges posed by Iran's nuclear program.

Larry Downing / Reuters

Obama, left, looks at the Treasury while he receives a tour of the ancient historic and archaeological site of Petra on Saturday.

During his visit, Obama appeared to have made some headway in easing Israelis' suspicions of him, calming their concerns about his commitment to confronting Iran and soothing his relationship with the hawkish Netanyahu.

Obama attempted to show Palestinians he had not forgotten their aspirations for statehood but he left many disappointed that he had backtracked from his previous demands for a halt to Israeli settlement building in the occupied West Bank.

The president offered no new peace proposals but he promised his administration would stay engaged while putting the onus on the two sides to set aside mutual distrust and restart long-dormant negotiations - a step the president failed to bring about in his first term.

Muhammad Hamed / Reuters

Members of the U.S. Secret Service Counter Assault Team survey a path after Obama walked through it during his tour of the ancient historic and archaeological site of Petra on Saturday.

As Obama's critics were complaining that his Middle East trip was heavy on symbolism and lacking in substance, the last-minute move toward Israeli-Turkish reconciliation gave his aides a chance to tout a tangible achievement.

On the last leg of his trip, Obama promised further humanitarian aid in talks with Jordan's King Abdullah, a close ally, as the economically strapped country grapples with a refugee crisis caused by Syria's civil war.

Obama also used the opportunity to underscore U.S. wariness about arming rebels fighting to overthrow Assad, despite pressure from Republican critics at home and from some European allies to do more.

He warned that a post-Assad Syria could become an "enclave" for Islamist extremism and insisted it was vital to help organize the Syrian opposition to avoid that, but he stopped short of announcing any new concrete steps.

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