The US and Iranian top have held their first major talks since June in a bid to broker peace among the two warring nations.
According to reports gathered by journalists, officials from the two countries held three hours of talks in New York on Tuesday, their first face-to-face contact since negotiations in Switzerland in June, hours after President Trump warned in his UN General Assembly address that he could “annihilate” Iran if a deal isn’t reached.
Trump said Iran faced a choice between reaching a deal and destruction, while also saying he believed an agreement could be reached after the US midterm elections in November.
The meeting was mediated by Qatar and involved Iran’s foreign minister and Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, along with presidential adviser Jared Kushner.
Trump described it as a very good meeting, adding that engagement has been scheduled to take place in the very near future.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said the Iranian delegation conveyed its conditions “very explicitly and clearly” to the American side through the mediators, including demands that Washington end what Tehran calls acts of aggression and lift measures affecting Iranian shipping and assets.
Responding to Trump’s annihilation remarks, the spokesman said the comments did not stem from strength, but from desperation, calling the threat “an admission of the nature of the current U.S. ruling establishment.”
The talks mark the first contact since a June ceasefire collapsed, with the US and Israel having launched strikes on Iran on February 28 and Iran retaliating against Israel, US bases in the Gulf, and Gulf allies, while also disrupting the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway that once carried some 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas.
Gulf Cooperation Council states, whose territories and shipping have been hit by Iranian missiles and drones and whose economies have slowed sharply amid the disruption, are pushing for an end to the conflict, though the two sides remain far from recommitting to the ceasefire that collapsed after being signed in June.
