United States' Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday said that US President Donald Trump is not in a hurry to make a peace agreement with Iran and that he is not going to make a bad deal.
Rubio's comments come at a time when Trump asserted that any future deal with Iran under his administration would involve no financial concessions and would be fundamentally different from the agreement reached during former US President Barack Obama's tenure.
Also read: Trump says any Iran deal will involve 'no cash', differ from Obama-era agreement
"As the President said, he's not in a hurry; he's not going to make a bad deal. I mean, the President is not going to make a bad agreement. So let's see what happens. We're going to give diplomacy every chance to succeed before we explore the alternatives," he told reporters.
The US Secretary of State said that Washington will either have a good agreement with Iran or deal with the country "another way."
He further informed that work is still in progress and a deal to end the war with Iran could materialise "today", adding that Israel had the right to defend itself against attack. The peace agreement between Washington and Tehran is stuck at key points, which include Iran's possession of nuclear programme, lifting sanctions on Tehran and opening of the Strait of Hormuz.
"Work still in progress. We thought we might have some news last night, maybe today. So we have what I think is a pretty solid thing on the table in terms of their ability to open up the Strait, get the Straits open, enter into a very real, significant time-limited negotiation on the nuclear matters and hopefully we can pull it off," Rubio said.
"Israel always has a right to protect itself... if Hezbollah is going to launch missiles or launches missiles at them, Israel has every right to respond to that," he told reporters as he departed for Agra.
Earlier on Sunday, Trump said that he had told his representatives not to rush into any deal with Iran, as his administration played down hopes of an imminent breakthrough in the three-month-old war that had been raised a day earlier.
The US blockade on Iranian ships in the Strait of Hormuz would "remain in full force and effect until an agreement is reached, certified, and signed," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "Both sides must take their time and get it right," he added.
A day earlier, Trump said Washington and Tehran had "largely negotiated" a MoU on a peace deal that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which before the conflict carried one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments.
