US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says that Washington is “in talks” with Iran and that Tehran has agreed to discuss aspects of its nuclear programme which were previously never mentioned.

“There is a prospect before us … that for the first time … they (Iran) have agreed to negotiate aspects of their nuclear programme that just a month ago, just a year ago, they were refusing to even mention, much less enter discussions about,” he tells the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Rubio notes that Iran’s “fractured” government is complicating the process, as it “takes days to get responses from their system”.

“We’re hopeful that something like that can happen — in which the Strait [of Hormuz] would reopen, we would enter a period of negotiations on very specific topics, delineated negotiations, in the hope of reaching an outcome that is acceptable to us, and something that they would be able to do as well,” he adds.