'Some good signs' a US-Iran deal to end war could be in sight, Marco Rubio reveals

 Marco Rubio said there are "some good signs" that a deal to end the Iran war could be in sight - but added that he doesn't "want to be overly optimistic".

The US secretary of state said that while the talks are progressing - with Pakistani representatives travelling to Iran on Thursday - Washington is dealing with "a system that itself is a little fractured".

Mr Rubio added that any diplomatic deal would be "unfeasible" if Iran imposes a toll on the Strait of Hormuz.

"No one in ​the world is in favour of the tolling system," he said. "It can't happen. ​It would be unacceptable.

"⁠It would make ⁠a diplomatic deal unfeasible if they were to continue ‌to pursue that. So it's a threat to the world if they were ‌trying to do that, and it's completely illegal."

Mr Rubio was speaking to reporters in Florida on Thursday as he boarded a flight to Sweden, where he will meet with NATO foreign ministers.

ISNA, one of the major news agencies in Iran, reported late on Thursday that an exchange of messages between Iran and the US was ongoing via Pakistani mediators.

The Strait of Hormuz, which is a conduit for one-fifth of global oil exports, has effectively been blocked by Tehran since the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran on 28 February. The stand-off escalated last month when the US began blocking Iranian ports.

Iran has claimed sovereignty over the strait, saying it will only fully reopen the waterway if it gets to charge commercial vessels tolls for passing through.

The disruption has had a wide impact on global economies, sending energy prices soaring and hitting government borrowing.

Iran's uranium enrichment is another sticking point in the deal negotiations.

Speaking at the White House on Thursday, Donald Trump said he will "have to do something very drastic" if Iran refuses to guarantee it will not acquire a nuclear weapon.

Tehran has so far retained its stockpile of near weapons-grade enriched uranium, which the US president has vowed to obtain and destroy.

He told the reporters in the Oval Office: "We will get it. We don't need it, we don't want it. We'll probably ​destroy it after we get it, but we're not going to let them have it."

Before the US president's comments, two senior Iranian sources are reported to have told Reuters news agency that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei had issued a directive stating that the uranium should not be sent abroad.

A shaky US-Iran ceasefire has been in place since early April, but both the Trump administration and Iranian officials have repeatedly threatened to resume attacks.

Mr Trump said in a Truth Social post earlier this week that he had told the US military "to be prepared to go forward with a full, large-scale assault of Iran, on a moment's notice" if a deal isn't reached.

Meanwhile, Iran's Revolutionary Guard threatened that it would "extend the war beyond the region" if the US attacks Iran again.