The first shuttle talks between the US and Iran for months raised hopes yesterday that the adversaries could make progress towards ending the Middle East war, although neither side spelled out any change in its position.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner communicated through mediators on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, the first such contacts since an interim ceasefire agreement collapsed in July.
“Witkoff and Kushner had a very productive meeting today with mediators of Iran,” US President Donald Trump said. “I think there’s a lot of momentum for them to make a deal. It’s what we’re hearing from everybody.”
Earlier, Trump had told the UN General Assembly in a speech that he had to decide whether to make a deal with Iran or “annihilate” it.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said Tehran had engaged with the US through a Qatari mediator in New York and conveyed conditions, including an end to the war on all fronts and a halt to US ‘acts of aggression’.
Some Iranian state media had earlier reported that Araqchi and Witkoff had met, but Iranian officials clarified to Reuters that it was not face-to-face. Araqchi met the prime minister of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, one of the main mediators at previous talks.
The contacts offered the first diplomatic opening in months after negotiations broke down in July and fighting resumed across the region. Since then, the two sides have repeatedly exchanged fire, although Trump has stopped short of a full-scale resumption of US strikes after military commanders warned munitions stocks were running low.
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