Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks at the NATO Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Helsingborg, Sweden, Friday. Photo by Johan Nilsson/EPA
May 22 (UPI) — The United States and Iran implied Friday that there was progress in peace talks but Tehran’s uranium and tolls for the Strait of Hormuz were sticking points.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said there were signs that negotiations were improving. He spoke with NATO General-Secretary Mark Rutte at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Helsingborg, Sweden.
“I don’t want to exaggerate it, but there’s been a little bit of movement, and that’s good,” Rubio said. “The fundamentals remain the same: Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. It just cannot. This regime can never have nuclear weapons, and to achieve that, we’re going to have to address the issue of enrichment. We’re going to have to address the issue of the highly enriched uranium.”
“Iran is trying to create a tolling system [in the Strait of Hormuz],” Rubio added. “There is not a country in the world that should accept that.”
Rubio told the NATO ministers that if Iran were to put tolls on the strait, “it will happen in five other places around the world. Why would[n’t] countries all over the world say, ‘Well, we want to do this too,’ not to mention how vital and critical that strait is to every country represented here today, but frankly to countries not represented here today, particularly the Indo-Pacific.”
Rubio also told reporters on Thursday in Miami: “If we can’t get a good deal [with Iran], the president’s been clear he has other options,” CNBC reported.
Iran was reviewing the latest U.S. proposal, and it “has narrowed the gaps to some extent,” according to the Iranian Students’ News Agency, which reportedly also said, “further reductions require an end to the temptation for war from Washington.”
Pakistan’s army chief field marshal, Syed Asim Munir, arrived in Tehran on Friday, according to the Pakistani armed forces. He was welcomed by Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni.
Munir was expected to meet with senior Iranian officials to discuss the indirect Iran-U.S. negotiations that Pakistan has helped to negotiate, CBS News reported.
Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said Friday on X that talks with Iran won’t help.
Wicker, who is chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee, said President Donald Trump is being “ill advised to pursue a deal that would not be worth the paper it is written on.
“Our commander-in-chief needs to allow America’s skilled armed forces to finish the destruction of Iran’s conventional military capabilities and reopen the strait,” he said.
“Further pursuit of an agreement with Iran’s Islamist regime risks a perception of weakness,” Wicker said. “We must finish what we started. It is past time for action.”
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