US President Donald Trump told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday that he faced a choice between a deal with Iran and annihilating it — and then disclosed that his envoys had met Iranian officials on the sidelines of the same gathering.
“I have a big decision to make,” Trump said in his address. “Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them 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?” Most of Iran’s delegation walked out of the chamber during that passage, Hiru News reported.
Contact, after months of silence
Trump said his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had met Iranian officials — the first such contact after months of stalled communication and the collapse of a short-lived ceasefire brokered in June. “It was a very good meeting,” he told reporters, adding that the Iranians present were “not the highest level, but it’s something.”
The two accounts of that meeting differ in a way worth noting. Hiru, following Trump’s own remarks, describes his envoys meeting Iranian officials. Daily Mirror, carrying Reuters, quotes Witkoff’s post on X describing lengthy talks conducted through mediators “who shuttled between the two sides throughout the day” — that is, indirect. Neither side has published a readout.
Iran’s Armed Forces dismissed the UN speech as “propaganda” and said their response would be “full readiness to inflict more severe, crushing, and unpredictable blows on the aggressors.” Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said Iran would never surrender.
Hormuz in seven days
A senior Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran had passed its latest proposal to Washington through mediators last week and could reopen the Strait of Hormuz to Gulf shipping within seven days if the United States eased military pressure and lifted its blockade on Iranian ports. The strait carried a fifth of global oil and gas shipments before the war, which is now in its seventh month.
Trump met leaders from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Jordan. On the table is a Qatari proposal for a common security framework taking in Iran and the Arab Gulf states, which regional sources said Iran was reviewing. Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who also met Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, has said any such arrangement would need security guarantees for the Gulf states.
Asked about timing, Trump said: “We think that the situation with Iran could end right after the (November 3) midterm elections, maybe before. I don’t know. You never know.”
Why it matters here
Oil found some relief on Tuesday as Saudi Arabia restarted its East–West Pipeline and prepared to resume exports from the Red Sea port of Yanbu, the route that bypasses Hormuz. The pipeline had been shut after attacks this month Riyadh blamed on Iran-aligned groups in Iraq.
For Sri Lanka, the strait and the price of crude are the whole story. The war has already pushed up the cost of the country’s fuel imports, and Iranian tankers have been anchored off Galle under the blockade. Iran’s seven conditions for talks, reported on Sunday, included lifting that naval blockade — the same demand now attached to the seven-day Hormuz offer.
