U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said the White House is expecting a response proposal on May 8 from the Iranian regime about ending the war, coming as American and Iranian forces clashed in the region in recent days.
"We're expecting a response from them today at some point. We have not received that yet," Rubio told reporters on Friday while he was visiting with the Pope in Italy about negotiations between Washington and Tehran.
Rubio added that U.S. officials hope that the Iranian proposal is "something that can put us into a serious process in negotiation."
The secretary said the U.S. government is aware of recent reports saying Iran is attempting to create "some agency that's going to control traffic" in the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway through which about one-fifth of the world's oil travels.
"That would actually be unacceptable," he said.
President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that a ceasefire was still holding despite a flare-up in the conflict after three U.S. Navy destroyers were attacked as they moved through the strait and that the U.S. military had fired back.
"Three World Class American Destroyers just transited, very successfully, out of the Strait of Hormuz, under fire. There was no damage done to the three Destroyers, but great damage done to the Iranian attackers," Trump wrote in the post on Thursday.
He later told reporters the ceasefire remained in effect and played down the exchange.
"They trifled with us today. We blew them away," Trump said in Washington.
Last month, a ceasefire was announced between the two nations, which has mostly held. In the meantime, the U.S. military has imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports and has turned back or stopped dozens of ships.
But an official with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Friday that the United States violated the ceasefire by "targeting an Iranian oil tanker" near the Strait of Hormuz and another vessel entering the strait near the United Arab Emirates, according to the semi-official Islamic Republic News Agency, or IRNA.
Since the start of the conflict, Trump has said Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon and that such a prohibition was implicit in a proposal made by Washington to Tehran. Iran has insisted that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes and that it isn't trying to obtain a nuclear weapon, while the United States, Israel, and some European countries have long said Tehran is attempting to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels.
"There's zero chance. And they know that, and they've agreed to that. Let's see if they are willing to sign it," Trump said on Thursday about the proposal.
On Friday morning, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said that two more Iranian ships accused of violating the U.S. blockade were disabled as they sought to enter an Iranian port in the Gulf of Oman.
The two Iranian-flagged ships attempted to enter the country's port before two U.S. Navy F-18 fighter planes disabled both vessels "after firing precision munitions into their smokestacks," CENTCOM said in a post on X, adding that the incident occurred on May 8.
Another vessel was disabled on May 6 by the U.S. military as it attempted to enter an Iranian port in the Gulf of Oman, according to the command.