Iran Talks

US and Iranian officials sat down at the United Nations in New York on Tuesday. It was their first meeting since a June ceasefire collapsed. No breakthrough followed, BBC News reported.

Qatar brokered the three-hour session between Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, and Steve Witkoff, President Trump's envoy, BBC News reported. Witkoff called it a round of discussions he hoped would prove constructive and promising. Iran repeated its demand that the US end its acts of aggression.

Hours earlier, Trump told the UN General Assembly he might annihilate the Islamic Republic. He asked delegates whether he should drive Iran into hell or let it rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before, BBC News and the Guardian reported. Trump also claimed Iran's government had slaughtered over 72,000 of its citizens this year, a figure the Guardian said far exceeds any previously documented estimate, including numbers Trump himself cited in the past. Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, Trump told the same podium, drawing applause, NBC News reported.

The war traces back to February 28. That day, the US and Israel struck Iran, and Iran hit back at Israel and US bases in the Gulf, BBC News reported. Iran also blocked the Strait of Hormuz, a passage that once carried a fifth of the world's oil and gas trade. Prices rose. That has piled pressure on Trump to end the conflict before November's congressional elections, BBC News reported. Fighting has continued in bursts since the ceasefire broke down. Iran has struck ships trying to cross the strait. The US has hit Iranian sites there and blockaded Iranian ports.

New sanctions landed this week. Georgia, Azerbaijan and Iraq began suspending Iranian airline flights Wednesday after aviation sanctions from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent took effect, CBS News reported. Iran's civil aviation authority canceled flights to Baghdad and Muscat in response.

Trump's UN remarks were a sign of desperation, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told CBS News.

Trump called the Tuesday meeting with the Iranian delegation very productive. He expects a deal with Iran only after November's elections, he told reporters.

"The mediators will continue their work," Witkoff wrote on X.