Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Congress on Tuesday that Iran has shifted its position on nuclear negotiations, signaling willingness to discuss restrictions on uranium enrichment it had flatly rejected weeks earlier. The claim came as Tehran announced it was walking away from indirect talks with Washington and threatening to fully blockade the Strait of Hormuz.
Rubio appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for the first time since the Trump administration launched military operations against Iran in February. He laid out a detailed roadmap for potential negotiations, though the timing remains murky given the competing statements from both capitals about whether talks are even ongoing.
"For the first time, certainly in my memory, they have agreed to negotiate aspects of their nuclear program that just a month ago they said they would not," Rubio told senators. He suggested a deal could materialize quickly, potentially "today, it could happen tomorrow, it could happen next week."
President Trump later disputed Iran's claim that negotiations had stalled, insisting conversations "have been going on continuously." The conflicting narratives underscored the fragile state of any diplomatic channel between Washington and Tehran.
Iran's state-affiliated Tasnim News Agency reported that Tehran was halting exchanges with the US through intermediaries, citing Israeli military operations in Lebanon as a violation of understandings. The announcement raised questions about the credibility of Rubio's optimism on Capitol Hill just hours earlier.
On the broader military picture, Rubio claimed Iran's defense capabilities had been severely degraded. He said the country's missile program had been "substantially degraded," launcher capacity reduced, and drone production capacity "eroded." "There is no Iranian navy," he declared. "It lies at the bottom of the ocean."
Those assertions have drawn scrutiny from independent analysts. The New York Times reported in May that Iran retained roughly 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile, though experts noted that Iran's ability to replace destroyed systems may be the more significant problem, with over 85 percent of its ballistic missile, drone, and naval defense industrial base damaged or destroyed.
Rubio outlined a two-phase framework for negotiations. Reopening the Strait of Hormuz served as a precondition, not a bargaining point. Iran would need to explicitly remove mines it placed in the waterway, commit to halting tolls on shipping, and pledge not to attack vessels. Only then would phase two negotiations begin, focused on Iran's highly enriched uranium stockpile and long-term restrictions on enrichment activity.
When pressed by Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, Rubio rejected any possibility of sanctions relief simply in exchange for reopening the strait. "Any sanctions relief is condition-based," he said, tying it directly to Iran's nuclear program. The blockade of Iranian oil shipments was costing Tehran "hundreds of millions of dollars a day" in lost revenue, he added, suggesting economic pressure would remain in place until Iran met US demands.
The collapse of April's ceasefire agreement, which had included Iranian commitments to reopen the strait, had triggered the US counter-blockade targeting all vessels bound for Iranian ports. Trump claimed Iran had "knowingly failed" to honor that pledge, and on April 13 the US launched its sweeping maritime campaign.
Rubio also suggested that Mojtaba Khamenei, who assumed control of Iran's leadership after his father Ali Khamenei was killed in the opening US-Israeli strikes on February 28, was alive and engaged in regime decision-making. "I think there are indications out there that he is increasingly engaging at some level," Rubio said, though the new supreme leader has not appeared in public since taking office.
Author James Rodriguez: "Rubio's optimism about imminent nuclear talks rings hollow when Iran is simultaneously announcing the talks are dead and threatening to choke off one of the world's most vital shipping channels."
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