The United States and Iran held lengthy indirect negotiations at the United Nations as US President Donald Trump threatened to annihilate Iran while also suggesting that an agreement to bring the nearly seven-month war to an end could be within reach.
Trump warned that he could annihilate Iran if an agreement to end the conflict cannot be reached, while at the same time indicating that a deal could soon be possible as diplomatic efforts intensified at the United Nations.
“I have a big decision to make,” Trump said during a speech at the UN General Assembly in New York.
“Will a deal be made with Iran that allows them to rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before?… Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?”
In a statement issued on Tuesday, Iran’s Armed Forces dismissed Trump’s remarks at the UN as “propaganda”, saying that they remained “fully ready to inflict more severe, crushing, and unpredictable blows on the aggressors.”
Despite the increasingly hostile rhetoric, diplomatic discussions continued in an effort to bring an end to the conflict, which began nearly seven months ago with joint US-Israeli strikes and has since resulted in thousands of deaths, pushed oil prices higher and pulled neighbouring countries into the fighting.
US envoy Steve Witkoff said in a post on X that the United States and Iran had held lengthy discussions on Tuesday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, with mediators “shuttling between the two sides throughout the day” in an effort to facilitate the talks.