Skip to main content

Rubio plans travel to France to sell Iran war to skeptical G7 allies

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to France this week to try to sell America’s skeptical Group of Seven allies on the strategy of the Iran war that has sent global fuel prices soaring, the State Department said Tuesday.

Rubio will attend a G7 foreign ministers meeting near Versailles outside of Paris on Friday “to advance key U.S. interests” and “discuss shared security concerns and opportunities for cooperation,” the department said.

“Areas of focus will include the Russia-Ukraine war, the situation in the Middle East, and threats across the world to peace and stability,” the department said in a statement released amid conflicting accounts over whether the U.S. and Iran are talking about a resolution to the conflict.

President Donald Trump said Monday that the U.S. and Iran have had discussions, although Iran has denied it. And numerous other countries are involved in nascent efforts to find an off-ramp to the crisis, which has caused the price of oil to skyrocket with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to most shipping, including tankers.

Nearly all of the other G7 nations — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan — have reacted coolly at best to the U.S.-Israeli military operation against Iran and have declined to participate, drawing Trump’s ire even as he maintains the U.S. doesn’t need their help.

Trump has lashed out a number of G7 members and NATO allies for not responding to his calls for help in reopening the Strait of Hormuz, although in recent days several of them had indicated a willingness to back appropriate action to restore the key waterway to normal traffic.

Ukraine’s drone strikes set a gloomy tone for Putin’s economic showcase

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — A massive black cloud rising above the St. Petersburg skyline from a Ukrainian drone strike set a gloomy tone for the opening of President Vladimir Putin's annual showcase of Russia's economic achievements. With Putin set to arrive Thursday in his hometown that is hosting the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, the Ukrainian attack a day earlier that set an oil terminal ablaze was another embarrassing blow to his efforts to minimize the impact of the 4-year-old conflict and cast it as a distant event with no effect on Russian daily life. The attack, which also targeted a naval base near Russia's second-largest city on the Gulf of Finland, underlined Ukraine’s growing capability to hit deep inside its neighbor and demonstrated that even the heavily protected city where Putin was born is increasingly vulnerable. Scores of flights were delayed or diverted at St. Petersburg’s airport and authorities cut cellphone internet service to try to prevent drone attacks.
Read Next Story