{"id":126805,"date":"2026-05-22T20:30:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T20:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/126805\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T20:30:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T20:30:12","slug":"rubio-signals-progress-on-iran-talks-insists-on-no-hormuz-tolls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/126805\/","title":{"rendered":"Rubio signals progress on Iran talks, insists on no Hormuz tolls"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks at the NATO Foreign Ministers&#8217; meeting in Helsingborg, Sweden, Friday. Photo by Johan Nilsson\/EPA<\/p>\n<p>May 22 (UPI) &#8212; The United States and Iran implied Friday that there was progress in peace talks but Tehran&#8217;s uranium and tolls for the Strait of Hormuz were sticking points.<\/p>\n<p>Secretary of State <a href=\"https:\/\/www.upi.com\/topic\/Marco_Rubio\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Marco Rubio\" class=\"tpstyle\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Marco Rubio<\/a> said there were signs that negotiations were improving. He spoke with NATO General-Secretary Mark Rutte at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Helsingborg, Sweden.\n<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t want to exaggerate it, but there&#8217;s been a little bit of movement, and that&#8217;s good,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.state.gov\/releases\/office-of-the-spokesperson\/2026\/05\/secretary-of-state-marco-rubio-and-nato-secretary-general-mark-rutte-after-their-meeting\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Rubio said<\/a>. &#8220;The fundamentals remain the same: Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. It just cannot. This regime can never have nuclear weapons, and to achieve that, we&#8217;re going to have to address the issue of enrichment. We&#8217;re going to have to address the issue of the highly enriched uranium.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Iran is trying to create a tolling system [in the Strait of Hormuz],&#8221; Rubio added. &#8220;There is not a country in the world that should accept that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Rubio told the NATO ministers that if Iran were to put tolls on the strait, &#8220;it will happen in five other places around the world. Why would[n&#8217;t] countries all over the world say, &#8216;Well, we want to do this too,&#8217; not to mention how vital and critical that strait is to every country represented here today, but frankly to countries not represented here today, particularly the Indo-Pacific.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>Rubio also told reporters on Thursday in Miami: &#8220;If we can&#8217;t get a good deal [with Iran], the president&#8217;s been clear he has other options,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/05\/22\/iran-war-strait-of-hormuz-tolls-trump.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">CNBC reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Iran was reviewing the latest U.S. proposal, and it &#8220;has narrowed the gaps to some extent,&#8221; according to the Iranian Students&#8217; News Agency, which reportedly also said, &#8220;further reductions require an end to the temptation for war from Washington.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Pakistan&#8217;s army chief field marshal, Syed Asim Munir, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/live-updates\/iran-war-trump-us-peace-talks-strait-of-hormuz-control\/#post-update-578e4d20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">arrived in Tehran<\/a> on Friday, according to the Pakistani armed forces. He was welcomed by Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni.<\/p>\n<p>Munir was expected to meet with senior Iranian officials to discuss the indirect Iran-U.S. negotiations that Pakistan has helped to negotiate, CBS News reported.<\/p>\n<p>Sen. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.upi.com\/topic\/Roger_Wicker\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Roger Wicker\" class=\"tpstyle\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Roger Wicker<\/a>, R-Miss., <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SenatorWicker\/status\/2057865140402299375\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">said Friday on X<\/a> that talks with Iran won&#8217;t help.<\/p>\n<p>Wicker, who is chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee, said President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.upi.com\/topic\/Donald_Trump\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Donald Trump\" class=\"tpstyle\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Donald Trump<\/a> is being &#8220;ill advised to pursue a deal that would not be worth the paper it is written on.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our commander-in-chief needs to allow America&#8217;s skilled armed forces to finish the destruction of Iran&#8217;s conventional military capabilities and reopen the strait,&#8221; he said.\n<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Further pursuit of an agreement with Iran&#8217;s Islamist regime risks a perception of weakness,&#8221; Wicker said. &#8220;We must finish what we started. It is past time for action.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1779481812_854_Iranians-rally-in-Tehran-with-missile-display_1_1.jpg\" style=\"width: 100%;\" width=\"647\" height=\"431\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t A missile identified as &#8220;Khorramshahr-4&#8221; was on display during a public rally in Tehran&#8217;s Enghelab Square on April 21, 2026. Photo by Behnam Tofighi\/UPI | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.upi.com\/News_Photos\/lp\/15881c77c45f030c4647afef0e8494e6\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">License Photo<\/a>\t\t \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks at the NATO Foreign Ministers&#8217; meeting in Helsingborg, Sweden, Friday. Photo by&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[648,38,34,210,81,32398,677,683],"class_list":["post-126805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iran","tag-defense","tag-donald-trump","tag-iran","tag-marco-rubio","tag-politics","tag-roger-wicker","tag-top-stories","tag-u-s"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116620127394383805","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}