As US-Iran Strait Of Hormuz Talks Advance, Marco Rubio Says Trump Won’t Accept ‘Bad Deal’

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday that the United States had made “significant progress” in negotiations with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, while stressing that President Donald Trump would not accept a deal that failed to meet US interests.

The comments came during Rubio’s four-day visit to India and amid indications that Washington and Tehran are considering an initial agreement to restore shipping through the Strait before negotiating a broader peace arrangement covering Iran’s nuclear programme. According to PTI, shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has faced major disruption since joint US and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28 triggered retaliatory attacks, despite a fragile ceasefire that came into effect on April 8.

“Work is still in progress. We thought we might have some news last night, maybe today,” Rubio told a small group of reporters before leaving for Agra.

“So we have what I think is a pretty solid thing on the table in terms of get the Strait open, enter into a very real, significant time-limited negotiation on the nuclear matters and hopefully we can pull it off,” he said.

The Strait of Hormuz is a key global shipping route through which around one-fifth of the world’s energy supplies pass under normal conditions. PTI reported that Iran’s nuclear programme and control over the Strait remain the central issues in the negotiations.

Rubio said there was international backing for efforts to end the conflict in West Asia, though he acknowledged the difficulty of the talks.

“Every country that we've walked through understands it's not just very reasonable, but it's the right thing for the world to get done. As the President said, he's not in a hurry; he's not going to make a bad deal,” he said.

Rubio said Washington would continue to pursue diplomacy before considering other options.

“The President is not going to make a bad deal. No one has been more serious about the threat of a nuclear Iran than President Trump has been.”

“And so I'm very confident that we should all be very confident that we're either going to have a good agreement or we're going to have to deal with it another way,” he said.

“We'd prefer to have a good agreement,” Rubio added.

Rubio had also said on Sunday that there was a possibility of “good news” emerging in the next few hours while addressing a press conference after talks with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, reported PTI.

The US Secretary of State also commented on the situation in Lebanon, where Washington is separately engaged with Beirut and Israel following a 45-day ceasefire.

“We're working on it separately. With Lebanon, we are engaged as we have a 45-day ceasefire. We've had weekly meetings now and ongoing daily engagements between the government of Lebanon and Israel,” he said.

Rubio said Hezbollah remained the main obstacle to peace in Lebanon.

“Just last night, Hezbollah put out a statement calling for the overthrow of the Lebanese government. And it just reminds you of who you are dealing with here. It (Hezbollah) is a 100 per cent Iranian proxy.”

“As long as an armed Hezbollah exists, it's going to be hard to achieve peace in Lebanon because they're victimising the people of Lebanon,” he said.

According to PTI, Rubio said progress had been made in discussions involving Lebanon and Israel and that the US would continue its engagement.

“We're going to continue to work on that. Well, Israel always has the right to protect itself. Every country in the world does. And so if Hezbollah is going to launch missiles or launch missiles at them, Israel has every right to respond to that or to prevent that from happening,” he said.

Rubio also spoke about his planned visit to the Taj Mahal before travelling to Jaipur and returning to New Delhi on Tuesday for the Quad foreign ministers’ meeting.

“It's one of the wonders of the world. I think it's important to show respect to the culture of the countries that you visit,” he said.

“We have a gap in our schedule because the Quad meeting couldn't happen until tomorrow. So it was a good opportunity to see some of the cultural sites here and pay respect to this country,” Rubio said.

“There's so much to see here, and such a big country with a lot of diversity and a tremendous history. So it'll be a good opportunity to see something that is iconic for the country,” he added.

(With inputs from PTI)