ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON/TEHRAN — Iran and the United States played down hopes for an imminent breakthrough in the three-month-old conflict on Monday, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying there will either be a good agreement or Washington would deal with the country in "another way".

Rubio told reporters in New Delhi that the US would give diplomacy every chance to succeed before exploring "alternatives", after President Donald Trump said on Sunday he had told his representatives not to rush into any Iran deal.

There was a "pretty solid thing on the table in terms of their ability to open up the strait, get the strait open, enter into a very real, significant, time-limited negotiation on the nuclear matter, and hopefully we can pull it off," Rubio said.

Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Monday that the deal will either be "great and meaningful, or there will be no deal at all".

He also urged Muslim-majority nations including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Pakistan, to normalize relations with Israel as part of the Iran peace deal.

Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday that Iran was negotiating an end to the conflict and was not currently discussing nuclear issues.

He said a framework had been reached but no one could say an agreement between the United States and Iran was imminent. The potential memorandum of understanding contained no specific details about the management of the Strait of Hormuz, which belongs to the coastal countries, he said.

The ministry also said that Iran would not take tolls for passage through the vital waterway, but added that it was "normal for services provided to require a price".

Before the conflict, the strait had carried a fifth of global shipments of oil and liquefied natural gas.

A day earlier, Trump wrote on Truth Social that the US blockade of Iranian ships in the Strait of Hormuz would "remain in full force and effect until an agreement is reached, certified, and signed".

He added, "Both sides must take their time and get it right."

Trump raised expectations of an imminent deal on Saturday when he said Washington and Tehran had "largely negotiated" a memorandum of understanding on a peace agreement that would reopen the strait.

Domestically in the US, lawmakers appearing on Sunday morning talk shows split sharply over a potential deal to end the Iran conflict, with Republicans mostly backing the publicly reported contours of an agreement being negotiated by Trump and Democrats dismissing it as accomplishing little.

Still at odds

Washington and Tehran remain at odds on several difficult issues, such as the nuclear issue, Israel's fighting in Lebanon with Hezbollah and Tehran's demands for the lifting of sanctions and the release of tens of billions of dollars of Iranian oil revenues frozen in foreign banks.

Iran's central bank chief Abdolnaser Hemmati traveled to Qatar following talks with a Qatari delegation in Tehran regarding Iran's frozen funds, Iranian media reported on Monday.

Iranian top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi were leading the delegation in Doha.

On Sunday, a senior US official said that the proposed framework would give negotiators 60 days to reach a final deal.

Iranian sources told Reuters that in future stages, "feasible formulas" could be found to resolve the dispute over its highly enriched uranium stockpile, including diluting the material under the supervision of the UN nuclear watchdog.

Any deal reinforcing the current fragile ceasefire, which has held since early April, would bring relief to markets but not immediately defuse a global energy crisis, which has driven up costs of fuel, fertilizer and food.

The US-Israeli bombing of Iran killed thousands of people in Iran before it was suspended in early April. Israel has also killed thousands more and driven hundreds of thousands from their homes in Lebanon, which it invaded in pursuit of Hezbollah. Iranian strikes on Israel and neighboring Gulf states have killed dozens.

Amid the latest developments in US-Iran talks, the Israeli military said it is prepared to resume combat operations against Iran, the army chief said on Sunday.

Chief of the General Staff Eyal Zamir made the remarks during a situational assessment at the military's Northern Command, the military said in a statement.

Agencies - Xinhua