Rubio accuses Iran of taking talks with US unseriously

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Tehran of not taking negotiations with Washington seriously.

“The problem we're having right now is that they're [the Iranian side] not serious about talks. If they're serious, we're serious. If they're not, then we will do what is necessary to protect that our interest and also the interest of our allies,” Rubio said during a meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers in Manila.

He reiterated that the United States remains committed to diplomacy.

“We are open-minded and always willing to engage negotiated settlements of differences, and that remains true in the case of Iran,” the secretary of state added.

Commenting on the situation with shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, Rubio said Iran is demanding the right to control the transit of vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, which it does not have under any existing legal mechanisms. The secretary of state stressed that the strait is an international waterway.

“And if we create a precedent in the Middle East where a nation state can decide that they are going to control an international waterway, charge a toll and if you don't pay them, blow up your ships, we have created a very dangerous precedent which will repeat itself in other parts of the world, including in this region,” Rubio noted.

According to him, “fundamental principles of freedom of navigation” are at stake.

By Jeyhun Aghazada