May 26 (Reuters) — The U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said on Tuesday that negotiations for a deal with Iran could “take a few days,” dashing hopes for an imminent end to the conflict, a day after U.S. forces carried out what Washington described as defensive strikes in southern Iran.
Describing the strikes against targets that included boats attempting to lay mines and missile-launch sites, Rubio said the Strait of Hormuz must be opened ‘one way or another’.
“The straits have to be open; one way or another, they will be open, so they need to be open,” Rubio told reporters aboard his plane in Jaipur, India.
Despite a ceasefire in effect since the beginning of April, the U.S. Central Command said in a statement on Monday that it had carried out new strikes aimed at ‘protecting our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces’.
Iran said on Monday that it shot down a stealthy ‘hostile’ drone using a new air defense system, Iranian news agencies reported, without saying where it came from.
The U.S. strikes occurred as Iran’s top negotiator and its foreign minister were in Doha to meet with the Prime Minister of Qatar about a possible U.S. deal to end the three-month war, an official familiar with the visit said.
Rubio told reporters in New Delhi that the United States would give diplomacy every chance to succeed before considering negotiating with Iran in ‘another way’.
He added that there was ‘something quite solid on the table’, referring to talks about reopening the Strait and a ‘very real, meaningful, and time-limited negotiation on the nuclear issue’.
In a lengthy post on Truth Social on Monday, the U.S. President, Donald Trump, stated that negotiations with Iran were going ‘very well’, but warned of the possibility of new attacks if they failed. “It will be one big deal for everyone or no deal at all,” he wrote.
In another sign of regional tensions, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel would intensify attacks against the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.
Shortly after, Israeli forces said they were striking Hezbollah infrastructure in the Beqaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, and in other areas.
Israel and Lebanon had reached a cease-fire agreement in mid-April, but Israel continued carrying out airstrikes which, the country said, were acts of self-defense against Hezbollah, which was not part of the truce.
