Trump announces "very productive" talks with Iran after threatening to eliminate it

US President Donald Trump announced that "very productive" talks took place on Tuesday between American and Iranian officials, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meetings in New York, hours after he threatened to eliminate Iran if an agreement was not reached.

Trump reported that a meeting between the two sides lasted three hours, with the participation of special American envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, without specifying the identity of the Iranian leaders who attended the meeting.

Trump said: “It was a very good and productive meeting. We will see how things turn out.”

He added: "I think there is great momentum to reach an agreement."

Trump announced the resumption of dialogue with Tehran during a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The US President confirmed that other talks are scheduled to be held "in the very near future."

US envoy Steve Witkoff, who attended the press conference next to Trump and who participated in that meeting, said he felt “very optimistic” about these talks, but he did not provide further details.

On the other hand, Iranian media reported that the Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, met with Witkoff and informed him of Tehran’s conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

Iranian state television quoted Araqchi as telling Witkopf that Tehran's demands include "the immediate lifting of the US naval blockade of Iranian ports, the urgent payment of all frozen Iranian assets, and an end to the war on all resistance fronts."

These statements came after a speech Trump delivered before the General Assembly, in which he focused specifically on the ongoing war with Iran.

During his speech before the United Nations, Donald Trump said that he had two options: either “eliminating” Iran or reaching an agreement, expecting to find a diplomatic solution after the US legislative elections scheduled for next November.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Iranian Armed Forces rejected Trump's threatening statements at the United Nations, describing them as "propaganda," saying that their response was "full readiness to direct harsher, more powerful, and more unpredictable strikes against the aggressors."

A meeting between Trump and leaders of Middle Eastern countries

President Trump also met with leaders of Arab and Islamic countries seeking to restore shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world's oil and gas supplies passed before the outbreak of war in the Gulf region.

The meeting held by Trump, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meetings, included the leaders of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Turkey, Indonesia, and Pakistan.

A number of these countries host huge American military bases, which have been subjected to repeated Iranian attacks throughout the war.

Trump said during his meeting with the leaders: “We believe that the situation with Iran may end immediately after the midterm elections (for Congress on November 3), and perhaps before that. I don’t know. You can never know.”

The US President was quoted after the meeting as saying that the meeting was important.

For his part, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who participated in the meeting, said that the meeting focused on ending the war in Gaza and reaching a permanent ceasefire, pointing out that it was “very productive.”

Speaking to reporters in New York after the meeting, Erdogan said that a joint statement issued by the meeting would be published and that he was “pleased” with its results, but he did not go into details, according to what Reuters reported.

Macron denounces Trump's diplomacy regarding Gaza

On Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron rejected US President Donald Trump’s talk about achieving peace in the Gaza Strip.

In his final speech to the United Nations before his term ends next year, Macron said that no humanitarian corridor in the Strip had reopened despite the declared peace.

Macron added, "The world is facing a scene that everyone should be ashamed of," criticizing Trump's portrayal of his peace plan in Gaza as a diplomatic victory.