WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio plans to travel to Israel next week toupdate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahuon the U.S.-Iran nuclear talks, two Trump administration officials said.
Rubio is expected to meet with Netanyahu on Feb. 28, according to the officials, who spoke Wednesday on condition of anonymity to detail travel plans that have not yet been announced.
The U.S. and Iran recently have heldtwo rounds of indirect talksover the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. Officials from both sides publicly offered some muted optimism about progress this week, with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi even saying that "a new window has opened" for reaching an agreement.
"In some ways, it went well," U.S. Vice President JD Vance said about the talks in an interview Tuesday with Fox News Channel. "But in other ways, it was very clear that the president has set some red lines that the Iranians are not yet willing to actually acknowledge and work through."
Netanyahu visited the White Houselast week to urge President Donald Trump to ensure that any deal about Iran's nuclear program also include steps to neutralize Iran's ballistic missile program and end its funding for proxy groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
Trump is weighing whether to take military action against Tehran as the administrationsurges military resources to the region, raising concerns that any attack could spiral into a larger conflict in the Middle East.
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On Friday, Trump told reporters that achange in power in Iran"seems like that would be the best thing that could happen." He added, "For 47 years, they've been talking and talking and talking."
The Trump administration has dispatched the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world's largest aircraft carrier,from the Caribbean Seato the Mideast tojoin a second carrieras well as other warships and military assets that the U.S. has built up in the region.
Dozens of U.S. fighter jets, including F-35s, F-22s and F-16s, have left bases in the U.S. and Europe in recent days to head to the Middle East, according to the Military Air Tracking Alliance, a team of about 30 open-source analysts that routinely analyzes military and government flight activity.
The team says it's also tracked more than 85 fuel tankers and over 170 cargo planes heading into the region.
Steffan Watkins, a researcher based in Canada and a member of the MATA, said he also has spotted support aircraft like six of the military's early-warning E-3 aircraft head to a base in Saudi Arabia.
Those aircraft are key for coordinating operations with a large number of aircraft. He says they were pulled from bases in Japan, Germany and Hawaii.
