Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service.

Coming to you live from London, I'm Sean Lay.

In the end, the talks were both indirect as Iran wanted and direct as the Americans preferred.

Today's meeting aimed at creating a new rapprochement over Iran's nuclear programme after Donald Trump took the United States out of the agreement during his first term, was hosted by Amman.

Its officials acted as the intermediaries between President Trump's envoy Steve Whitkoff and the Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Arachi, whilst the two principals sat in separate rooms.

But their paths did cross briefly and they did exchange words.

Later, Mr. Aragchi gave his assessment to Iranian media.

We talked indirectly for about two and a half hours with back and forths.

I'm grateful to my brother, Mr. Boussady, Amman's foreign minister, for hosting us.

I think he scuttled between two rooms four times.

He informed and conveyed thoughts of each negotiating team to the other.

As the first session, it was constructive and held in a calm and very respectful atmosphere.

There was no inappropriate language and both sides showed their willingness to reach a comprehensive agreement that is acceptable for both sides.

Mr. Aragchi, whose words were spoken there in translation and Mr Wickhoff agreed to continue talking next week.

Today is a small but potentially significant moment.

After all, President Trump and pulled out of a deal signed by Iran, the Obama administration,

and a group of other major countries which limited Iranian uranium enrichment in return

for relief from economic sanctions.

Now, with the United States and Israel fearful that the progress Iran has made

towards processing weapons-grade uranium and with the restrictions imposed under the existing

deal set to expire, there's an incentive to talk, the US to keep Iran constrained and Iran

to avert the threat of being bombed. Wendy Sherman was America's lead negotiator with Iran

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