(AFP) – President Donald Trump revealed that US and Iranian officials held talks Tuesday for the first time in months, even as he told the United Nations he was still deciding whether to “annihilate” Iran. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met Trump’s roving envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
Trump’s carrot-and-stick approach began with a bombastic speech to the UN General Assembly in New York focused heavily on his stalled, unpopular war against the Islamic Republic. “I have a big decision to make — will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country?” the 80-year-old said in his speech, during which all but one member of the Iranian delegation walked out. “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?”
Trump said he believed Iran would make a deal immediately after November’s midterm elections — in which Republicans face losing control of Congress due largely to the conflict’s drag on the US economy. But just after his speech, Trump revealed that Iranian and US representatives had met for three hours on the sidelines of the UN gathering. “They had a very good meeting, a very productive meeting — they have another one scheduled in the very near future,” Trump told reporters as he met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Trump later added while meeting Gulf leaders at the UN that “I think there’s a lot of momentum for them to make a deal, that’s what we’re hearing from everybody.” Iranian media reported that Araghchi gave Witkoff conditions for reopening the crucial Strait of Hormuz waterway. According to the state news agency IRIB, Araghchi said Tehran’s demands included “the immediate lifting of the (US) naval blockade, the prompt payment of all Iranian assets that have been frozen, and an end to the war on all resistance fronts.” Witkoff told reporters that “I feel very good right now” about the Iranian meeting but would not give further details.
It is believed to be the first face-to-face meeting between Iranian and US officials since US Vice President JD Vance met senior Tehran officials in Switzerland in June. Trump promised when the US and Israel launched the war on February 28 that it would be over in four or five weeks, but the conflict is now grinding on well into its sixth month. A ceasefire agreed in April quickly broke down and negotiations have since stalled, with Iran refusing to cede control over the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump has sought to justify the economic pain of high fuel prices caused by the war amid mounting voting anger, saying that Iran cannot be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon. Despite the belligerent tone of much of his speech, Trump portrayed himself as a peacemaker who was acting in America’s interests, declaring: “While others have ignored threats, I have confronted them.”
Yet Trump’s meeting with Zelensky underscored that he is still to secure a deal to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a war that he once claimed he could settle in 24 hours. Trump insisted he was working with both sides to end the war, despite little evidence of Russian President Vladimir Putin being open to any settlement. “It’s going to happen, I think, more quickly than people understand,” Trump said in his UN speech.
Zelensky later told journalists that Ukraine was ready to halt strikes on Russian energy sites if Moscow agrees to do likewise, after Trump called on him to stop hitting diesel refineries. While at the UN, Trump also signed a security deal with Greenland and Denmark which has — for now at least — cooled his calls for seizing the autonomous Danish territory. The pact will see the United States build two military bases in southern and eastern Greenland and bars non-NATO powers from establishing any military presence on the arctic island. “It’s going to be a long-term, fantastic relationship,” said Trump, whose territorial claims to Greenland since his return to power have deeply alarmed traditional US allies.
– Gregory WALTON with Danny KEMP in Washington
© 2024 AFP
