US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that there might be news “maybe today” in the talks between Iran and the US to end the war.

“Work still in progress. We thought we might have some news last night, maybe today…,” Rubio told reporters in the Indian capital New Delhi, as he flew to the Indian city of Agra to visit the landmark Taj Mahal.

The US diplomat said there is "a pretty solid thing on the table in terms of their ability to open up the straits, get the straits open, enter into a very real, significant, time-limited negotiation on the nuclear matters.”

“Hopefully we can pull it off,” he said.

Rubio, who is on a four-day visit to India, said US President Donald Trump is not “going to make a bad deal," and the US is going to give "diplomacy every chance to succeed."

“As the President (Trump) 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 alternative,” he said.

He said, "No one has been more serious" about the "threat of a nuclear Iran" than Trump has been. “And so I'm very confident that we should all be very confident that we're either going to have a good agreement or we're going to have to deal with it another way. We would prefer to have a good agreement,” said Rubio.

'Working separately' on Lebanon, says Rubio

Responding to a question if Lebanon was going to be part of the US-Iran deal, the top diplomat said, “we are working on it separately.”

“With Lebanon we are engaged now. We have a 45-day ceasefire; we’ve had weekly meetings now and ongoing daily engagements between the Government of Lebanon and Israel. The problem is not Lebanon and Israel. The problem is Hezbollah,” he said.

“As long as an armed Lebanon, as long as an armed Hezbollah exists, it’s going to be hard to achieve peace in Lebanon because they’re victimizing the people of Lebanon," said Rubio.

“But we’re working that track with the Lebanese Government and the Israeli Government, and we’ve made some good progress there, an extended ceasefire. A path forward, we’re going to continue to work on that,” he added.

The US top diplomat said “... if Hezbollah is going to launch missiles, it launches missiles at them, Israel has every right to respond to that or to prevent that from happening,” he said. “That’s always been understood. It’s being understood during the ceasefire now in Lebanon, and it’ll be understood beyond that.”

Trump on Saturday held a phone call with regional leaders to discuss ongoing indirect talks with Iran. According to him, an agreement was "largely negotiated" and awaited finalization.

The US and Iran have largely avoided direct attacks since a temporary ceasefire took effect in April, allowing diplomatic outreach on a broader agreement to continue. A ceasefire in the war that began on Feb. 28 was first mediated by Pakistan on April 8. (AA)

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