Brent crude slipped below $100 a barrel for the first time in two weeks after Donald Trump said that three hours of surprise talks with Iran at the United Nations in New York had gone very well. Tehran was quick to say nothing had changed on its side.
The meeting, mediated by Qatar, brought Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, together with Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Trump called it very productive and suggested more talks could follow soon. Witkoff described the session as “encouraging, constructive and successful.”
Tehran says its conditions stand
Iran pushed back on reports that it had dropped its earlier preconditions for reopening the strait of Hormuz. Foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei confirmed the talks took place but did not point to any shift in position. “The interaction that took place with the American side was through Qatari mediation,” he said. It was meant to convey Iran’s conditions, he added, including ending the war in all its dimensions, stopping American aggressive actions, the naval siege and the economic war, and releasing Iranian assets.
Iran has set seven preconditions for a return to talks. Over the past 48 hours it also said the strait could reopen within seven days if they were met. The Guardian reported that the US and Gulf states would probably have to accept a shipping route running mainly through Iranian waters, under Iranian rather than Omani control.
Oil flows and political pressure
Traffic through the strait is thin. Published figures suggest fewer than five identifiable tankers a day get through, though US navy estimates are much higher. A second chokepoint, the Bab al-Mandab strait leading from the Red Sea into the Indian Ocean, adds to the uncertainty because of the Houthis’ control over it.
The Guardian’s analysis said Washington is under pressure to bring oil prices down and increase supplies of refined oil before the November midterm elections. It also noted little sign that Trump wants to restart a full-scale war with Iran.
Iran faces pressure of its own. A US naval blockade is making oil exports nearly impossible, and Iran’s civilian aircraft were facing a possible worldwide grounding because of the threat of US secondary sanctions. Oman and Iraq appear to have closed their airspace to Iranian civilian planes.
President Masoud Pezeshkian, who favors negotiations but has not played a direct role in the talks, was due to address the UN general assembly on Wednesday. He has said the memorandum of understanding agreed with the US on 17 June remains the starting point. Implementation collapsed after each side accused the other of trying to take control of the strait.
At the assembly, French president Emmanuel Macron criticised the attempt to overthrow the Iranian government by the US and Israel. “Every time a few states, sometimes even in the name of international order, have tried to replace the people in order to change a regime or a system, they have plunged those states into even greater chaos,” he said.
