US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that President Donald Trump's negotiating team has not offered Iran sanctions relief in exchange for reopening the Strait of Hormuz and insisted that any sanctions relief was tied to Tehran giving up its nuclear programme.
"Right now, everything that's been discussed with them (Iran) is that…any sanctions relief is condition-based, which means it has to be in return for the reason why those sanctions were put in place in the first place, which is their nuclear programme," Rubio told a Senate hearing.
Testifying in Congress publicly for the first time since the Iran war began, Rubio said there will be sanctions relief for Iran if they agree to give up their nuclear activities.
"Iran is being sanctioned because they've highly enriched uranium. Iran is being sanctioned because of their nuclear activities. If they agree to give up those things, there will be sanctions relief associated with their commitment and compliance with those agreements," he said.
Rubio testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday morning as the Trump administration seeks congressional approval for its proposed 30 per cent cut to the foreign affairs budget and a 50 per cent increase in military spending.
He was to appear at three other hearings later on Tuesday and on Wednesday, as his fellow Republicans have been showing signs of concern about the Iran war.
Rubio, who also serves as Trump's national security adviser, was a senator from Florida until January 2025, and lawmakers said they hoped their former colleague would spell out a strategy for ending the Iran conflict, which started with strikes by the US and Israel on February 28.
Trump and his supporters insist the war will have been worthwhile if it keeps Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Trump also insists that gasoline prices will come down and has insisted for weeks that he will reach a good deal to end the conflict.
Iran wants an interim agreement with sanctions relief that would allow it access to billions of dollars in oil revenue, but Washington has continued to add sanctions against Iranian actors while talks have taken place.
Rubio did not specify when there might be such a deal. He said Iran had intended to build up its conventional weapons capabilities as a "shield" for its nuclear programme.
"What they tried to do is they were going to try to build a conventional shield and hide behind that conventional shield," he said, spelling out why Trump felt it was imperative to launch the war.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Editing by Don Durfee, David Gregorio, Rod Nickel)