US and Iran hold talks on sidelines of UN General Assembly

Alex Ritzen (0:00)

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritzen and in the early hours of Wednesday 23rd September, these are our main stories. Donald Trump hails what he calls a productive meeting with Iranian officials on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Meanwhile, the US introduces global sanctions that could ground most Iranian aircraft. An organised crime group shuts down parts of Colombia's Caribbean coast, prompting the president to send in the army.

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The war in Iran was always going to dominate this year's United Nations General Assembly. The annual gathering of leaders and officials from around the world is an opportunity for diplomacy and on Tuesday, there were direct talks between the US and Iran for the first time in months. But it's also an occasion for fiery speeches and rhetoric and when President Trump addressed the Assembly, he included a threat of extreme action against Iran.

Donald Trump (1:28)

I have a big decision to make.

Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before? Maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world? Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations? But I believe we'll make a deal right after the election.

Alex Ritzen (2:09)

Meanwhile, on the sidelines of the General Assembly, Mr Trump's chief envoy, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner spent three hours in talks with Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Aragchi. Mr Trump said afterwards the talks had been productive, while Iranian state media said the main reason for the discussions had been to convey Tehran's conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. I asked our State Department correspondent, Tom Bateman, what else had come out of that meeting.

Tom Bateman (2:37)

It was a three-hour meeting, so clearly it covered a lot of ground. I think it is almost certain that the fate of the Strait of Hormuz was a key part of that. Now, there is a sense from at least one Iranian official of a preparedness to lower the demands on the Iranian side with the Americans. Now, that may be a result of the punishing economic blockade that the Americans have in place, which is continuing to put this massive pressure on the regime. This Iranian official is saying basically that they would be prepared to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within a week if the Americans remove their naval blockade of Iranian ports, plus some other measures. But these are not the same extensive list of demands that the Iranians had previously in order to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. So there is a feeling of the potential for progress. Although Donald Trump seems to be sort of foreclosing the idea there won't be a deal before the midterm elections in the US, which aren't until early November. Having said that, I was standing outside the UN building here when Steve Wyckoff walked out with his sunglasses on, and my colleague Nedder Torfik shouted to him to ask how the meeting with the Iranians had gone. He gave us a big thumbs up, and he has certainly been briefing out that in his view, the meeting went very well. He does tend to put a positive spin on things, even if that isn't absolutely the case.

This meeting is significant because there hasn't been a meeting at that level between the Iranians and the Americans since about June, and that was when the Vice President, JD Vance, was meeting the Iranians in Pakistan. So perhaps it looks like a potential for dialogue is back open, but we have been here many times before, where it has felt like the potential of progress is there and it simply hasn't materialised. And on the other hand, you have Mr Trump repeating the threat to annihilate, quote, and drive into hell Iran. Now, he's made those threats on social media before. He's done it in the Oval Office. Here, he's doing it in front of more than 190 countries of the world, the body that was meant to be around getting peace and security through dialogue and diplomacy. So it tells you something about where we are and also, frankly, how kind of normalised some of these threats have become now.