New Delhi: There is possibility of “good news” regarding the peace deal with Iran later today, US secretary of state Marco Rubio, who is on a four-day India tour, told reporters in New Delhi on Sunday.
“I do think perhaps there is the possibility that in the next few hours the world will get some good news,” he said.
The emerging peace deal would address concerns on the Strait of Hormuz – which Iran largely blocked in response to the US-Israel joint attack, Rubio said. The agreement would also start a “process that can ultimately leave us where the president wants us to be, and that is a world that no longer has to fear or worry about an Iranian nuclear weapon”, he said, as reported by NDTV.
The ultimate goal is to make sure Iran could never have a nuclear weapon, he said.
“Iran can never possess a nuclear weapon. The Strait of Hormuz is an international waterway, and what they are doing now is basically they are threatening to destroy commercial vessels using an international waterway that is illegal under any concept of international law,” the US secretary of state said.
He was addressing a joint press confer
ence with external affairs minister S Jaishankar, when Rubio made the remarks.
A peace deal with Iran has been “largely negotiated”, US president Donald Trump said earlier in the day after calls with Israel and other allies in the region. This potentially paved the way for an end to the three-month-long war. In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said the final details of the deal were being discussed before a formal announcement.
He separately spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – which went “very well”, Trump said.
Trump described the negotiations as a “Memorandum of Understanding pertaining to PEACE”, saying that the Strait of Hormuz would be reopened as part of the proposed understanding. However, Iran rejected Trump’s claim, saying that Tehran would continue to maintain control over Hormuz.
Iran agreed only to allow the number of passing ships to return to pre-war levels, but this “in no way means a return to free passage” as it existed before the war, reports said.
Fars news agency reported how Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) called Trump’s post a “propaganda”, adding that no commitment on Tehran’s nuclear programme has been made, Fars news agency reported.
“It is worth mentioning that Trump had previously announced negotiations about Iran’s nuclear programme as one of the main and inseparable conditions of any agreement. However, no commitment has been made by Iran, and the nuclear issue has not been discussed at this stage,” the IRGC reportedly said.