United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has told Al Jazeera that the Strait of Hormuz will “reopen one way or another” in the wake of the eventual end of the US-Israeli war with Iran.The exclusive interview on Monday came as speculation has grown over a possible US troop deployment in Iran and as the effective closure of the strait continues to roil global oil markets.US boots on the ground would represent a new phase in the grinding conflict, which began on February 28 with US-Israeli strikes, even as US President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that the US is pursuing diplomacy with Iran.Rubio again maintained there were “messages and some direct talks going on between some inside of Iran and the United States, primarily through intermediaries, but there’s been some conversation”.Iran has repeatedly denied that talks were ongoing. Pakistan on Sunday said it would host direct talks “in the coming days for a comprehensive and lasting settlement of the ongoing conflict”.Rubio added that Trump “always prefers diplomacy, always prefers an outcome..and we could have done this before”.The Trump administration had previously pursued indirect talks with Iran to curtail its nuclear programme. One round of talks was derailed last year with Israel’s 12-day war against Iran, which ended with US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facility.A second round of diplomacy was underway when th …
