Rubio says indirect negotiations with Iran are progressing

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Tuesday that indirect negotiations between Iran and Oman made progress but fell short of a finalized deal. Rubio identified opening the Strait of Hormuz and the denuclearization of Iran as the Trump administration’s top priorities.

President Donald Trump on Monday characterized the latest negotiations as Iran’s last chance to broker a deal with the United States. The United States was preparing to carry out a large-scale attack before Iran’s negotiators and several Middle Eastern countries called at the very last minute to restart talks, Trump said.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent attributed Iran’s return to negotiations to Trump’s military threats during a Tuesday interview. There’s a chance a deal to reopen the strait will be hammered out Tuesday or Wednesday, he said. Bessent reiterated the administration's assertion that U.S. forces wiped out Iran’s navy, air force, and missile production capabilities.

What are Middle Eastern parties saying? Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majid al-Ansari confirmed the ongoing negotiations involving Iran during a Tuesday press conference. Negotiation efforts remained in a progressive stage, but all parties continued working toward a diplomatic resolution, al-Ansari said. The spokesman also identified reopening the strait as a shared priority, along with the avoidance of further escalation.

The United States bore sole responsibility for everything happening in the Middle East due to its military aggression, according to a Tuesday statement from Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei.

Dig deeper: Listen to Mary Reichard’s discussion with former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Michael Ratney on The World and Everything in It about Houthi rebels opening a second front in the Iran war.