US, Iran hold mediated talks at UN on ending war and reopening Strait of Hormuz

On the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, American and Iranian officials engaged in their most direct contact in weeks, with mediators working to bridge a chasm between two nations whose standoff over the Strait of Hormuz threatens the arteries of global commerce. Iran arrived with explicit conditions — the lifting of a naval blockade, the release of frozen assets, the end of military pressure — while Washington oscillated between optimism and the language of annihilation. Whether this fragile opening at the world's foremost diplomatic forum can hold long enough to bec