US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said “little progress” has been made in Pakistan-brokered talks to end Iran’s war, while cautioning Tehran against setting up a system of charging tolls for passage through the Strait of Hormuz, which he said no country should accept.
Speaking to reporters on 22 May in Helsingborg, Sweden, where he is attending a meeting of NATO foreign ministers, Rubio said the Pakistan-brokered talks had shown limited but positive progress.
“There has been some marginal progress,” he said. – I don’t want to exaggerate, but there is still a little bit of movement, and that’s good.”
Rubio criticised reports of Iran’s moves to implement a tolling system in the strategically important Strait of Hormuz.
“Iran is trying to set up a toll system. Incidentally, they are trying to persuade Oman to join them in a toll system for the international waterway,” he said. – There is no country in the world that can agree to this.”
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met with Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi in Tehran on 22 May to discuss proposals aimed at ending the US-Israeli war with Iran, according to Iranian media reports.
The talks came two days after Naqvi conveyed Washington’s message to Tehran amid ongoing attempts to bridge differences over Iran’s uranium reserves and control of the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency said Naqvi was helping to facilitate communication on a framework to end the conflict.
A senior Iranian source told Reuters that differences between the two sides had narrowed, but the key stumbling blocks were still uranium enrichment and the Strait of Hormuz, which before the war accounted for about 20 per cent of the world’s oil and gas supplies.
The U.S. and Israeli war with Iran has disrupted global markets, driving up oil prices and heightening fears of inflation.