Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday said talks with Iran had made “slight progress” and said all countries should reject Tehran’s plans to implement a tolling system in the Strait of Hormuz.
Speaking at a Nato meeting in the southern Swedish city of Helsingborg, Mr Rubio said tolls “can't happen” and that he did not want to overstate any forward movement in the talks.
“There’s been some slight progress, I don’t want to exaggerate it, but there’s been a little bit of movement, and that’s good,” Mr Rubio said alongside Nato chief Mark Rutte.
“The fundamentals remain the same. Iran can never have a nuclear weapon, it just cannot.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has met Pakistan's Interior Minister Mohsen Naqvi to discuss the prospect of ending the Iran war, Iranian state news agencies reported.
Mr Naqvi has been in Iran since Wednesday, the Isna news agency said, and Pakistan's Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Thursday said his country is “doing our best” to help Iran and the US reach an agreement.
Tolls in the strait
Mr Rubio said Iran is planning to create a tolling system in the Strait of Hormuz and was “trying to convince Oman” to join them “in this tolling system in an international waterway”.
“There is not a country in the world that should accept that. I don’t know of a country in the world that’s in favour of it, except Iran, but there’s no country in the world that should accept it,” he said.
Mr Rubio said a draft resolution at the UN Security Council that demands Iran stop obstructing shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, remove sea mines and halt “illegal tolls” now has more co-sponsors than any other resolution ever.
Its fate remains unclear, however, as veto holders Russia and China have expressed serious concerns.
“Unfortunately, a couple of countries on the Security Council are thinking about vetoing it. That would be lamentable,” Mr Rubio said.
“We are you doing everything we can, though, to achieve the sort of global consensus that's necessary to prevent this from happening, and we're trying to use the United Nations.”
“I don't know of anyone in the world that would, that should, be in favour of a tolling system in an international waterway, that's just not acceptable. It can't happen,” he added.
“If that were to happen in the Straits of Hormuz, it will happen in five other places around the world.”
Transatlantic tensions
The meeting of foreign ministers in Sweden marks the first time the Scandinavian nation has hosted such an event since it joined the alliance in 2024.
Countries are keen to show Mr Rubio that they are increasing financial commitments fast enough to assuage US President Donald Trump, who has long accused Nato of not spending enough, while Washington picks up the tab.
“The good news is the money is now coming in. Defence spending is rapidly ramping up … tens of billions, and over the years, there's hundreds of billions coming in,” Mr Rutte said.
The meeting is ostensibly focused on spending commitments and renewing Nato's support for Ukraine, but Nato Secretary General said Iran and the Strait of Hormuz were front and centre.
“I hear from many of my colleagues here that [closure of the Strait of Hormuz] is not acceptable,” he said. “The freedom of navigation is basically trampled upon as it is at the moment, and we have to think how we collectively can deal with this.”
He added that “everybody acknowledges” that the United States degrading Iran's nuclear and long-range missile capability “is crucial for the Middle East, for Europe, for the whole world”.
