US and Iranian officials sat down for direct talks at the United Nations in New York on Tuesday, their first face-to-face contact in three months, hours after President Donald Trump told the UN General Assembly he could "annihilate" Iran if the two countries fail to reach a deal to end their war.
The closed-door session, mediated by Qatar and Pakistan, ran for about three hours and brought together Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Trump told reporters afterward, on the sidelines of a separate meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, that the talks "went very well." A further round is expected.
A blunt choice, delivered from the podium
Trump's 37-minute address to the assembly hours earlier set the tone. He said he had prevented Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and cast the coming months as a fork in the road for Tehran's government.
"Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Or do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness?"
Donald Trump, US president, addressing the UN General Assembly
He predicted a deal would come only after the United States' midterm elections on November 3, arguing Iran was waiting to see how his party fared at the polls before committing to terms — a linkage one outside commentary called a rare admission that the war's endgame has become a domestic political calculation as much as a diplomatic one, in a critique of the remarks published elsewhere.
What Iran wants for the strait
According to Iranian state media and officials briefed on the talks, Araghchi used the New York meeting to press Iran's conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz: an end to the US naval blockade of the waterway, the release of frozen Iranian assets, and a halt to fighting on all fronts. Iranian officials have signalled that the strait, through which roughly a fifth of the world's seaborne oil trade normally passes, could reopen within about a week if Washington moves first.
Oil markets took the talks as an encouraging sign. Benchmark Brent crude eased toward $98.55 a barrel and US crude to about $89.36 on Wednesday, down from highs reached earlier this month, as traders weighed the prospect of eased supply disruption alongside Saudi Arabia's plans to restart its East-West pipeline.
The fighting has run for nearly seven months. The United States and Israel opened the current phase of the war on February 28 with strikes on Iranian targets, months after the ceasefire ending 2025's Twelve-Day War had held. Washington and Tehran signed a memorandum in June setting a 60-day window for a broader settlement, but it collapsed in early July after Iran struck commercial vessels in the strait, and fighting resumed. Average US gasoline prices have risen roughly 50% since the war began, with diesel hitting a record $6.52 a gallon this week, according to figures reported by NBC News.
The toll has drawn international scrutiny. The UN Human Rights Council said this month there were reasonable grounds to believe US forces committed war crimes during February strikes on an Iranian school and a residential area, allegations Washington has rejected. Iranian officials have cited the finding in demanding an unconditional end to hostilities as part of any final settlement.
European officials welcomed the resumption of contact. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, who met separately with Araghchi in New York, said discussions had covered "diplomatic prospects for ending the US-Iran war and fully re-opening the Strait of Hormuz." Trump also said he would "probably" be open to meeting Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian directly, though he gave no date.
Whether the New York contact holds is an open question. The June memorandum also produced weeks of cautious optimism before it unravelled within days of its 60-day window expiring. Diplomats from Qatar and Pakistan, who brokered Tuesday's session, are expected to keep shuttling between the two delegations this week as the General Assembly continues, with a further Araghchi-Witkoff meeting anticipated before world leaders leave New York.
