Rubio | Pakistan

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers on Wednesday that Washington’s military campaign against Iran, codenamed “Operation Epic Fury”, had concluded and that any subsequent American military action would be defensive in nature rather than part of an ongoing offensive operation. Rubio made the remarks during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing when members of Congress questioned the administration’s assessment of the conflict and its aftermath. His comments came amid continuing concerns over regional security, the deployment of US forces across the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital maritime route through which a significant share of the world’s oil exports pass. During the hearing, Rubio announced, “We’re no longer conducting sustained strikes inside of Iran to degrade their military, because Epic Fury is over.” Later, he reiterated: “Epic Fury is over … that operation has concluded.” Rubio argued that the operation was a “victory” as Washington achieved i...

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday told lawmakers that Iran had agreed to begin limited negotiations over its nuclear programme, marking what he described as a tentative but meaningful shift in Tehran’s posture as the United States-led conflict continues to destabilise the Middle East. Rubio said that Iran had also indicated interest in discussing parts of its nuclear programme that it had previously refused to engage on, but he cautioned that this did not ensure the negotiations would produce a deal to end the US-Israeli conflict with Iran. “They have agreed to negotiate aspects of their nuclear programme that just a month ago, just a year ago, they were refusing to even mention,” Rubio said. But he added that it’s “not a guarantee that ultimately it will lead to a deal that’s acceptable” by Congress. He said these negotiations had been made difficult by the instability of Iran’s leadership. He also stated that the Trump administration had not proposed sanctions relief in exchange for I...

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar will visit Washington on Friday where he will meet with US Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Thursday. The visit comes as Islamabad is attempting to negotiate a peace pact to permanently end the US-Israeli war with Iran. The meeting with Rubio was originally scheduled for today but later moved to Friday. Dar will meet Rubio “to review bilateral relations and exchange views on regional and global developments of mutual interest”, the foreign ministry said in a statement. “The discussions will also focus on strengthening cooperation in key priority sectors, as well as Pakistan’s efforts to promote regional peace and stability through dialogue and diplomacy,” the foreign office elaborated, adding that the visit “reflects Pakistan’s commitment to further deepening its longstanding and broad-based partnership with the United States.” DPM Dar is expected to leave for Islamabad later in the day af...

India voiced concern on Sunday over a US visa crackdown, striking a rare critical note even as it expressed broad alignment with Secretary of State Marco Rubio on other fractious issues. Paying his first visit to India, Rubio said the two democracies were on the same page on all major issues, brushing aside recent unease in New Delhi over trade, China and the Iran war. India’s foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar agreed that the two countries had a “convergence of national interests in many areas” but publicly took Rubio to task over US President Donald Trump’s assault on visas. Jaishankar said he “apprised Secretary Rubio of challenges that legitimate travellers face in respect of visa issuance”. “While we cooperate to deal with illegal and irregular mobility, our expectation is that legal mobility should not be adversely impacted as a consequence,” he said, noting that visas were key for US-India tech cooperation. Trump, who has made curbing non-Western immigration a key political priority, has ramped u...

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday invited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Washington, reaffirming the importance of a relationship that has come under growing strain, a week after the United States held a warm summit with China. After joining US President Donald Trump in Beijing a week ago, Rubio — visiting both Asian powers for the first time — flew to New Delhi and saw Modi for more than an hour, inviting the premier to visit the White House soon. Rubio “underscored the strategic importance of the US-India partnership, rooted in our shared democratic, profound economic and commercial opportunity and the strong personal ties” between Modi and Trump, State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said, glossing over last year’s friction between the world’s two largest democracies. Modi, in a post on X, said he was “happy” to receive Rubio. “We discussed sustained progress in the India-US Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership and issues related to regional and global peace and secur...

Pakistan remains primary interlocutor: Rubio

A Vatican statement after Pope Leo’s meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, which said the two had pledged to improve bilateral relations, was a recognition of unprecedented tensions, insiders and analysts said. Rubio’s meeting on Thursday with Pope Leo, the first US pope, garnered wide public attention as President Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked the pontiff over the US-Israeli war on Iran. The Vatican statement after the 45-minute encounter, the first between the pope and a Trump cabinet official in nearly a year, said the two leaders had “renewed the shared commitment to fostering good bilateral relations”. “[The] statement makes it clear that, at present, there is work to do,” Peter Martin, a former diplomat at the US embassy to the Holy See who served during Democratic and Republican administrations, told Reuters. Break with tradition of saying all is well Austen Ivereigh, a Vatican specialist who co-wrote a book with the late Pope Francis, said the statement’s focus on the need to build bi...

As the war in Iran threatens to imperil United States President Donald Trump’s legacy, the political stakes also are rising for two of his top lieutenants: Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The pair, widely viewed as potential successors to Trump, have been thrust into still-developing negotiations to end the war at a moment when the Republican Party is already weighing its post-Trump future. Vance has taken a cautious approach, reflecting his scepticism toward prolonged US military involvement, while Rubio has aligned himself closely with Trump’s hawkish stance and emerged as one of the administration’s most vocal defenders of the campaign. Trump has said both men were involved in efforts to force Iran to accept US demands to dismantle its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes and allow oil traffic to pass freely through the Strait of Hormuz. With the next presidential election due in 2028 and term limits barring Trump from running again, the president has been putting the succes...

The war in the Gulf is still expected to last weeks, not months, and Washington can meet all its objectives without using ground troops, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday. Rubio told reporters after meeting G7 counterparts in France that Washington was “on or ahead of schedule in that operation, and expect to conclude it at the appropriate time here — a matter of weeks, not months.” While he said Washington could achieve its aims without ground troops, he acknowledged that it was deploying some to the region “to give the president maximum optionality and maximum opportunity to adjust the contingencies, should they emerge”. Washington has dispatched two contingents of thousands of Marines to the region, the first of which is due to arrive around the end of March aboard a huge amphibious assault ship. The Pentagon is also expected to deploy thousands of elite airborne soldiers. The deployments have raised concern that an air war that has already disrupted global energy supplies could turn into a ...

Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) and Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) Field Marshal Asim Munir has discussed “global and regional security dynamics” with United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said on Sunday. CDF Munir undertook a visit to Germany from February 12 (Thursday) to 14 (Saturday) to attend meetings on the sidelines of the 62nd Munich Security Conference, according to the military’s media affairs wing. In a press release, ISPR said the army chief met with Rubio and “discussed matters of mutual interest, including global and regional security dynamics and counterterrorism cooperation”. During his visit, Field Marshal Munir interacted with a number of dignitaries. These included Germany’s Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, Foreign Policy & Security Policy Adviser to Federal Chancellor of Germany Günter Sautter, and Chief of Defence Carsten Breuer. “The meetings focused on contemporary security issues, bilateral defence cooperation and the need for promoting...

CDF Munir meets Rubio, German dignitaries

The United States is ready to work with Venezuela’s remaining leaders if they make “the right decision”, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday after an audacious US operation removed the oil-rich country’s president, Nicolas Maduro. “We‘re going to judge everything by what they do, and we‘re going to see what they do,” Rubio told CBS News’ ‘Face the Nation’. “I do know this: that if they don’t make the right decision, that the United States will retain multiple levers of leverage.” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was in a New York detention centre on Sunday after US President Donald Trump ordered a US raid to capture the South American leader and take control of the country and its vast oil reserves. As part of the dramatic operation early on Saturday that knocked out electricity in parts of Caracas and included strikes on military installations, US Special Forces seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and transported them via helicopter to a US Navy ship offshore before flying them to the US. ...

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in Malaysia on Monday, as the two countries push trade talks and ease tensions over Washington’s punishing tariffs. Few details were released, but Rubio’s meeting with Jaishankar is the highest-level contact since the US imposed sanctions last week on Russian oil companies, a key source of India’s crude supplies. Jaishankar posted a photograph on social media showing him smiling and shaking hands with Rubio, saying he “appreciated the discussion on our bilateral ties as well as regional and global issues”. The meeting took place on the sidelines of the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) in Malaysia, which US President Donald Trump attended in person and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed by video link. Modi had backtracked from his proposed visit to Kuala Lumpur to attend the Asean summit, with Malaysia’s PM Anwar Ibrahim saying that his Indian counterpart had cite...

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio lauded Pakistan’s role in “global and regional peace” in his first meeting with Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Friday, the Foreign Office (FO) said. The deputy prime minister arrived in Washington, DC, on Thursday night, on the second leg of his eight-day visit to the US. He had arrived in New York on Monday to attend “high-level signature events” of Pakistan’s United Nations Security Council (UNSC) presidency, including a conference on Palestine. A statement issued by the FO today said that Dar held his first meeting with Rubio. The two have previously talked over the telephone. The FO said Rubio acknowledged Pakistan’s “everlasting sacrifices in the war on terror”. “Pakistan has always played a positive role in global and regional peace,” the FO quoted the US secretary of state as saying. The FO said that detailed discussions were held on bilateral relations and potential cooperation in various sectors. “Discussions were held on promoting...

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday that he had “positive and constructive” talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, as the two major powers vied to push their agendas in Asia at a time of tension over Washington’s tariff offensive. The top US diplomat was in Malaysia on his first Asia trip since taking office, seeking to stress US commitment to the region at the East Asia Summit and the Regional Forum of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), where many countries were reeling from a raft of steep US tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump this week. Rubio had his first in-person talks with the Chinese foreign minister, which came after Beijing warned the US against reinstating hefty levies on its goods next month and threatened retaliation against nations that strike deals with the US to cut China out of supply chains. Wang has sharply criticised Washington during talks with Asian counterparts in Malaysia, calling the US tariffs “typical unilateral bullying beh...

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke on Thursday with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif about recent developments in the Middle East, underlining a shared commitment to regional stability and non-proliferation amid renewed efforts to engage Iran. “Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke today with Pakistani Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif regarding events in the Middle East. Secretary Rubio emphasised that Iran can never develop or acquire a nuclear weapon,” US State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement. “The two leaders acknowledged the importance of working together to promote a durable peace between Israel and Iran and to maintain regional stability,” she added. The call highlights Washington’s growing engagement with Islamabad at a time when the Trump administration is reportedly exploring a new diplomatic initiative with Tehran, possibly “as early as next week”. Rubio’s statement that “Iran can never develop or acquire a nuclear weapon” will be interpreted in various ways in both Pa...