President Donald Trump said Tuesday that three hours of U.S.-Iran discussions held on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly had gone “very well,” later telling Gulf and other regional leaders that momentum was building toward an agreement. The talks marked the first reopening of a direct negotiating channel between Washington and Tehran since June.
Trump revealed the discussions during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in New York. He said U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had taken part and that the two sides had already scheduled another meeting for the “very near future.”
“It was a very good meeting,” Trump said. “It was a meeting that lasted for three hours.”
Trump said he could not understand why Tehran would turn down a deal in light of the alternative he believes Iran now faces.
“It’s greatness, potential greatness, or obliteration,” Trump said. “In one case it’s obliteration, and the other alternative is potential greatness. It could be a great country.”
Witkoff stood beside Trump as the president described the talks. Although he initially provided few specifics, the U.S. envoy sounded confident when reporters asked about the negotiations.
“I feel very good right now,” Witkoff said. When asked how he expected to feel the following day, he replied: “I think very good.”
Witkoff later explained that the discussions had taken place indirectly, with mediators traveling between the American and Iranian delegations throughout the day.
“Today, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, we engaged in lengthy talks with the Iranian delegation through the mediators, who shuttled between the two sides throughout the day,” Witkoff wrote on X.
“They successfully completed a round of discussions that we hope will prove constructive and promising,” he added. “The mediators will continue their work.”
Iranian state media also confirmed that contact had taken place. The reports said Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with Witkoff and used the encounter to present Tehran’s conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
The Iranian account said those conditions included lifting the U.S. naval blockade, unfreezing Iranian assets and ending the war across areas Tehran refers to as the “resistance fronts.” Iranian state television said the country’s “firm positions” were delivered during the meeting.
The call to end the blockade targets one of Washington’s main pressure tools against Tehran and quickly emerged as a central obstacle in the renewed negotiations.
Iranian state media’s description was broader than a proposal outlined earlier Tuesday by a senior Iranian official. The official told Reuters that Tehran could reopen the Strait of Hormuz to Gulf shipping within seven days if Washington reduced military pressure and lifted its blockade of Iranian ports.
The official said Iran had sent the offer through mediators the previous week, calling the General Assembly a “golden opportunity” to restore diplomacy. The Iranian delegation in New York, the official added, had full authority to negotiate.
Trump later offered an increasingly upbeat assessment of the newly restored diplomatic channel.
During a meeting with British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, Trump predicted that Washington and Tehran would eventually reach a settlement and said communication between the two governments was already expanding.
“I think that a settlement is going to be reached,” Trump said. “They want to talk to us. They have been talking to us, even today they’ve been talking to us. And the relationship is developing.”
Trump repeated that message during a later meeting with members of the Gulf Cooperation Council and other regional leaders.
“Steve and Jared had a very productive meeting today with mediators of Iran,” Trump said. “I think there’s a lot of momentum for them to make a deal. That’s what we are hearing from everybody.”
But Trump’s upbeat public assessment did not mean the central disagreements had been resolved.
Al Arabiya reported, citing an unnamed U.S. source who attended the talks, that Washington rejected Tehran’s request to lift the blockade and that major differences and obstacles remained between the two sides. The source described the chances of reaching an agreement as limited.
The blockade has become one of Washington’s most powerful economic and military levers against Tehran. U.S. forces have spent months restricting Iranian maritime trade while simultaneously expanding protected commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump himself pointed to that pressure during his General Assembly address earlier Tuesday, saying U.S. forces had helped move more than one billion barrels of oil through the waterway while calling on countries around the world to join Washington in imposing “complete economic isolation” on Tehran until Iran stops attacking commercial shipping, relinquishes its nuclear ambitions, and ends its support for terrorism.
On Tuesday, Trump used his U.N. address to frame the choice between a negotiated agreement and renewed military action in stark terms.
“I have a big decision to make,” Trump told the General Assembly.
He described that decision as a choice between an agreement that could allow Iran to rebuild into “a far greater country” and renewed military action that he said could “annihilate the Islamic Republic.”
Trump nevertheless said he believes Tehran will ultimately make a deal, possibly after the U.S. midterm elections, while insisting that election politics will not determine his decision.
“What they don’t realize is that I’m not running,” Trump said of Iranian leaders. “I give absolutely no credence and will not give credence to the election when it comes to Iran. It doesn’t even enter my mind. The only thing that does is that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.”
Preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon has remained the administration’s central stated condition throughout the conflict and the renewed diplomatic push.
On Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Trump remained willing to engage with Iranian officials if talks offered a path toward resolving the conflict, while making clear that Washington’s nuclear red line had not changed.
“This is a president that will meet with anybody for the most part because he believes that engaging with people is important if you’re going to solve problems,” Rubio said in an interview with NBC News. “It doesn’t mean you’re going to end up agreeing with them, but it’s important.”
Rubio said Washington remained open to engagement while stressing: “Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. They just simply can’t.”
The diplomatic opening came as both sides continued applying military and economic pressure.
Speaking with Gulf and other regional leaders after the negotiations, Trump said Washington was “completely isolating Iran financially” and warned Tehran to act “fast before it’s too late.”
He also repeated his threat to strike the fortified Pickaxe Mountain site if the United States detects renewed activity there, while acknowledging that Washington was “not seeing a lot of activities there” at present.
Iran’s military leadership, meanwhile, dismissed Trump’s U.N. remarks as “merely a tool for domestic propaganda” and warned that Iranian forces remained prepared to carry out “more severe, crushing and unpredictable” strikes if the United States or Israel attacks again.
Even with those threats, the diplomatic channel remains open.
Witkoff said the mediators “will continue their work,” while Trump said another meeting was expected in the “very near future.” Iran, meanwhile, has publicly outlined conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, including lifting the U.S. naval blockade and other economic and military demands.
For now, Washington and Tehran have returned to negotiations without abandoning the military and economic pressure each side is using to try to shape the next phase of the conflict.
