US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has told lawmakers that opening the Strait of Hormuz is the first condition in talks with Iran, adding that Tehran must also commit to specific negotiations on the disposition of highly enriched uranium. Rubio made the remarks during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Tuesday.
Rubio said Iran had agreed to discuss aspects of its nuclear programme that it previously refused to mention, but cautioned that this did not guarantee a deal. “They have agreed to negotiate aspects of their nuclear program that just a month ago, just a year ago, they were refusing to even mention,” he stated, without elaborating.
Meanwhile, the fourth round of Israeli-Lebanese talks began in Washington, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency. The talks are taking place at the US State Department headquarters amid ongoing violence in southern Lebanon, where Israeli strikes killed at least eight people on Tuesday, according to NNA.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry reported that Israeli strikes near a hospital in Tyre killed four people and wounded 127, including 39 hospital staff. The Israel Defense Forces issued another evacuation warning for Nabatieh, the third in a week, as strikes continue despite a US-brokered ceasefire announcement that neither Israel nor Hezbollah have publicly accepted.
Hezbollah official Mahmud Qomati rejected a partial ceasefire, stating the group would not halt attacks on northern Israel in exchange for Israel sparing Beirut’s southern suburbs. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called on Israel to exercise restraint and urged Hezbollah to disarm.
