Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State in India, says agreement with Iran is possible within a few days
Marco Rubio said there were some talks going on in Qatar today, so we’ll see if we can make progress.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is in India to attend the Quad Foreign Ministers Meet, on Tuesday said that a deal with Iran was still possible despite new American strikes that cast doubt on their fragile ceasefire. He said there were some talks going on in Qatar today, so we’ll see if we can make progress.
US military carries out "self-defence" strikes in southern Iran
The US military on Monday said that it carried out "self-defence" strikes in southern Iran, including on missile launch sites and boats placing mines, even as President Donald Trump said on social media that negotiations with Tehran were "proceeding nicely."
The strikes comes as top Iranian negotiators arrived in Doha for the latest round of talks to end the months-long conflict, which had prompted Iran to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial artery for global energy exports.
Strikes were done to protect US troops from threats
The strikes were done "to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces," but the military was "using restraint during the ongoing ceasefire," Capt Tim Hawkins, the spokesman for the US military's Central Command, said in a statement.
Further details were not immediately available, including more specifics on the threats from Iran and what this means for negotiations. There was no official response from Iran, which had sent its parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf to Qatar for negotiations over the possible deal with the US
Qatar, which faced intense attacks from Iran during the war, holds billions of dollars in frozen Iranian funds.In Iran, the news website Tabnak, believed to be close to former Revolutionary Guard chief Mohsen Rezaei, identified four dead Guard troops it said had been killed in American strikes on boats.
Iranian media report blasts around Bandar Abbas
Iranian state television separately reported blasts around Bandar Abbas, a city on the Strait of Hormuz home to a military port and a dual-use airport.
The strikes were the latest attacks to shake the weekslong ceasefire in the war. The Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of all crude oil and natural gas traded once passed, remains effectively in Iran's chokehold, disrupting global energy markets.
Earlier in the day, Trump said any agreement to end the Iran war should include a requirement for several additional countries, including Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, to join the Abraham Accords, the US-brokered agreements from Trump's first term aimed at normalizing relations with Israel.
The proposal came as the emerging Iran deal faced criticism from fellow Republicans who favour a harder line on Iran, and it could add new diplomatic complications to the negotiations.
Trump pointed to Saudi Arabia and Qatar as countries that should "immediately" sign on. Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates became the first countries to join in 2020, diplomatically recognizing Israel. He wrote that "after all the work done by the United States to try and pull this very complex puzzle together, it should be mandatory that all of these Countries, at a minimum, simultaneously, sign onto the Abraham Accords."
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