Three-hour Qatari-mediated Iran-US talks at UN end without position shift

Brent crude falls below $100 as Trump signals further talks possible

Three-hour talks between Iranian and US delegations at United Nations headquarters in New York ended Tuesday with Iran’s foreign ministry denying that Tehran had shifted its preconditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, despite President Donald Trump’s characterisation of the meeting as “very productive.”

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, confirmed the talks occurred under Qatari mediation but said Iran had only communicated its conditions rather than adjusted them. “The interaction that took place with the American side was through Qatari mediation,” Baghaei said. “This interaction was aimed at conveying Iran’s conditions, including the end of the war in all its dimensions, the cessation of American aggressive actions, the naval siege, and the economic war, the release of Iranian assets and so on.” Aware of the potential domestic backlash, he added that Iran’s conditions had been conveyed.

The denial came hours after Trump told reporters the three-hour meeting had gone “very well” and been “very productive” and suggested further talks were possible imminently. Trump’s envoy Witkoff described the talks as “encouraging, constructive and successful.” Trump’s comments pushed the price of a barrel of Brent crude below $100 (£75) for the first time in two weeks.

The Iranian delegation was led by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Iran set seven preconditions before returning to talks, and in the 48 hours before the meeting said the strait could be reopened within seven days if those conditions were met.

According to The Guardian’s reporting, any reopening would likely require the US and Gulf states to accept a navigational route for shipping in the strait of Hormuz — a key waterway for transporting oil — that requires commercial shipping to enter through a sea lane mainly in Iranian waters and under Iranian rather than Omani control. Implementation of the 17 June memorandum fell apart after both sides accused the other of breaching its terms by trying to take control of the strait. Iran said the memorandum clearly left Iran in control of the strait for an interim period before a long-term agreement on its management was reached, including the possibility of Oman and Iran charging fees for navigational services.

The Guardian noted that the three-hour duration of the meeting suggested some progress had been made. The US side is under pressure to leverage down oil prices and increase the availability of refined oil before the midterm elections in November. The Guardian’s latest published figures suggest fewer than five identifiable tankers are making it through the strait daily, but estimates from the US navy are much higher.

The blockage in the strait is made worse by uncertainty over Houthi control of a second chokepoint, the Bab al-Mandab strait linking the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean.

The talks came amid mounting pressure on Iran’s civilian aviation sector. Iranian officials negotiated with neighbouring countries to maintain an air bridge after the threat of US secondary sanctions on any entity engaging with Iran’s civilian fleet left its aircraft facing potential worldwide grounding. According to The Guardian, Oman and Iraq appear to have been forced to close their airspace to Iranian civilian planes.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, who advocates negotiations with the US but did not play a direct role in the talks, is due to address the UN General Assembly on Wednesday after arriving in New York on a flight from Tehran as the meeting was under way. Pezeshkian has said the 17 June memorandum of understanding remains the starting point for negotiations.

In his speech to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump said he had a decision to make very soon on whether to “annihilate the Islamic Republic” or help turn it into “one of the great countries of the Middle East.” The Guardian reported that “there is little sign that Trump wants to relaunch a full-scale war with Iran or indeed with the Houthis as Republicans battle to turn the domestic political agenda away from a hugely unpopular war that the Americans think they are losing.”

The secondary US pressure on Iran has intensified through sanctions and a naval blockade that has made it nearly impossible for Iran to export oil and earn foreign currency. Pezeshkian is expected to use his UNGA remarks to condemn western double standards over what he regards as an illegal US assault on Iran that has left schoolchildren dead and infrastructure ravaged, contrasting Europe’s willingness to call out Russia for its invasion of Ukraine with its reticence over the US campaign against Iran and Israel’s conduct in Gaza.

Several European and Arab leaders used their UNGA speeches on Tuesday to decry the inability of the west to enforce peace. French President Emmanuel Macron, in his farewell speech to the UN, criticised the US-Israeli attempt to overthrow the Iranian government, saying: “Every time a few states, sometimes even in the name of international order, have tried to replace the people in order to change a regime or a system, they have plunged those states into even greater chaos.” He also accused the west of failing to impose a peace in Gaza. “Some boast of a supposed peace. But this peace hasn’t reopened humanitarian routes for a single second. Must we stand by and watch this spectacle that shames us all? Never!”

Macron drew a rebuke from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office after suggesting Hamas was not present in the West Bank as it is in Gaza. Netanyahu’s office, using the biblical name for the territory, responded: “Hamas terrorists carry out attacks against Jews almost every day. They have murdered countless Israeli civilians in Judea and Samaria.”

Jordan’s King Abdullah II attacked the Israeli government for “moving the goalposts,” continuing attacks on civilian infrastructure in Gaza and refusing to withdraw from the territory, which he said had forced the Palestinian population into barely one-third of Gaza. Observers must no longer treat Israeli policies as “temporary military measures” or a “consequence of war,” he said. “Accountability begins when we call things what they are: an attempt to erase Palestinian life and impose a new territorial reality in Gaza.”