\n The combat operation launched in February against Iran has ended, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said definitively Tuesday, suggesting the American priority now was reopening the Strait of Hormuz.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe operation is over. Epic Fury, as the president notified Congress, we\u2019re done with that stage of it,\u201d Rubio said during a White House briefing, adding: \u201cWe achieved the objectives of that operation.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe\u2019re now on to this Project Freedom,\u201d he went on, referring to Trump\u2019s initiative to guide merchant vessels through the strait. He added later: \u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re undergoing now. What they may lead to in the future is speculative.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n The White House notified Congress last week that hostilities against Iran had been \u201cterminated\u201d as it reached a 60-day threshold that would require formal authorization from lawmakers.\n <\/p>\n
\n Trump, however, has not ruled out resuming a bombing campaign if negotiations collapse or Iran breaks the current ceasefire.\n <\/p>\n
\n Questions about Iran\u2019s nuclear program \u2014 including its stockpile of highly enriched uranium \u2014 will be resolved through talks, Rubio said.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cAs far as a negotiation is concerned, I think the president\u2019s been clear that part of the negotiation process has to be not just the enrichment, but what happens to this material that\u2019s very deep somewhere,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to endanger the negotiations, but suffice it to say that the president and this entire team is aware of the centrality of that question, and that will have to be addressed one way or here,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The combat operation launched in February against Iran has ended, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said definitively…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[121],"tags":[17588,4890,186],"class_list":{"0":"post-58997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-marco-rubio","8":"tag-hnk","9":"tag-int","10":"tag-marco-rubio"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116526109393867000","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}