WASHINGTON: United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that Iran’s stance on the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway through which a fifth of global oil and liquid natural gas normally transits, did not meet US demands.
“If what they mean by opening the straits is, ‘yes, the straits are open as long as you coordinate with Iran, get our permission or we’ll blow you up and you pay us,’ that’s not opening the straits,” Rubio said in a Fox News interview on Monday (Apr 27).
“They cannot normalise – nor can we tolerate them trying to normalise – a system in which the Iranians decide who gets to use an international waterway, and how much you have to pay them to use it,” he said.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump met with his top security advisors on Monday to discuss an Iranian proposal that would reportedly re-open the Strait of Hormuz as broader negotiations over the war continue, the White House said.
When asked about the reported plan – which would see both Iran and the US lift their blockades ahead of further talks on the thorny issue of Tehran’s nuclear programme – spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told a White House briefing that “the proposal was being discussed”.
“Only because it’s been reported, I will confirm the president has met with his national security team this morning,” she said, refusing to say if Trump would accept the proposal.
US outlet Axios had earlier reported that Trump would meet with his national security team to discuss an offer by Iran on re-opening the strait and postponing nuclear negotiations to a later stage.
ABC News, citing two anonymous US officials, meanwhile reported that the deal fell short of Washington’s red lines.
Leavitt told reporters that “the president’s red lines with respect to Iran have been made very, very clear, not just to the American public, but also to them as well”.