WASHINGTON—Iranian negotiators have shown increasing willingness to negotiate over aspects of their nation’s nuclear program, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told senators on June 2.
“For the first time, certainly in my memory, they have agreed to negotiate aspects of their nuclear program that just a month ago, or just a year ago, they were refusing to even mention, much less enter into discussions about,” Rubio said in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Rubio said there is the possibility that Washington and Tehran can reach an agreement in the coming days, though he warned that progress is slowed by a fractured Iranian leadership and their reliance on intermediaries to relay communications.
The terms Trump described would have allowed U.S. access to damaged Iranian nuclear facilities to recover and dispose of highly enriched uranium. He said the deal would also see the full restoration of maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and the lifting of a U.S. blockade of Iranian ports.
Following Trump’s announcement, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said U.S. and Iranian negotiators were continuing to exchange messages but that they had not reached a final agreement.
In the days that followed, U.S. and Iranian forces traded fire, threatening an already delicate ceasefire that has been in place since April 7.
Tehran also increasingly raised objections to Israel’s intensifying military operations in Lebanon against Hezbollah, a designated terrorist organization aligned with Iran.