Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Iran has failed to take multiple chances at a U.S. nuclear deal while efforts to end a seven-month conflict stay stalled.

Rubio delivered the message Wednesday during a visit to Greece, pressing Tehran over a nuclear program Washington still refuses to accept and a wider fight that has left diplomacy frozen.

Newsmax reported his blunt assessment of missed openings and an unchanged U.S. bottom line: Iran does not get a nuclear weapon.

Vice President JD Vance drew the same line on enrichment, telling Reuters that any agreement to wind down the conflict must include a meaningful cut in Iran’s uranium-enrichment capacity. He cast that demand as proof, not paperwork.

Vance put the burden on Tehran in plain terms.

He told Reuters:

"If you don't want a nuclear weapon, then why do you need 60% enriched fuel?"

And he added:

"And if you want to show commitment to not building a nuclear weapon, don't build highly enriched fuel,"

Vance called that test “a very basic threshold issue.” Concrete limits, in the administration’s view, are how Iran shows it is not chasing a bomb.

Tehran calls enrichment a red line

A senior Iranian official pushed back Wednesday to Reuters and rejected any surrender of what Tehran treats as a right to enrich uranium. Recognition of that right, the official said, remains a “red line.”

The same official said Vance’s remarks were U.S. “ideas and requests,” not the product of talks, and claimed there had been no negotiations between Iran and the United States over the nuclear program. That account collides with Rubio’s charge that Iran already passed up multiple chances to reach an agreement.

Rubio has been a steady public voice on the administration’s Iran file, including when he expelled Iranian negotiators in a separate clash tied to pressure on Tehran.

He left no room on the core demand itself.

Rubio said:

"Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, simple, period, end of story,"

He also said Iran “has failed to take advantage of multiple opportunities to reach agreement with us on nuclear program.” The wording was flat. The policy was not up for decoration.

Hormuz claims split sharply

Nuclear terms were not the only point of conflict. Rubio and Iranian military voices gave opposite readouts on the Strait of Hormuz, the vital oil shipping route at the center of the wider fight.

Rubio said Iran has “lost complete control” of the strait. He told reporters the waterway is open and energy traffic has largely recovered.

Rubio said:

"The Strait of Hormuz is open,"

He said “there's almost as much oil flowing out now as there was before this conflict began.”

A senior adviser to the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the opposite on Wednesday: that the strait remains closed and Iranian forces have “full control” of it. One side described commerce moving. The other claimed a locked door.

Reuters reported that Middle Eastern crude exports already exceeded prewar levels on several days in September, lining up with Rubio’s oil-flow claim more than with a total shutdown story.

That recovery has not meant calm seas. Attacks, attempted attacks, and harassment aimed at oil, LNG, and LPG tankers hit their highest weekly level since the conflict began during the week of Sept. 28 through Oct. 5, Reuters reported Wednesday.

Maritime security sources cited at least 12 incidents in that stretch, including drone surveillance and harassment attributed to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Exports climbed on some September days even as tanker crews faced a spike in interference.

Trump rejected a strait-for-talks offer

President Donald Trump turned down an Iranian proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and resume negotiations. The offer would have traded access through the waterway for a return to talks. Trump said no.

He has said the United States remains in a strong position and expects a decision soon on how to “finish up” the conflict. The sequence is straightforward: Iran floated a reopening bargain, the White House rejected it, and the president is weighing next steps while enrichment and shipping disputes stay unresolved.

Vance’s enrichment demand and Rubio’s no-weapon rule sit on the same track inside the administration, a pairing also watched in coverage of Trump’s 2028 signals on Vance and Rubio.

Iran’s public answer still runs through enrichment as a sovereign claim and through denials that real nuclear negotiations with Washington have even started. Rubio’s answer is that chances already came and went. Vance’s answer is that 60% enriched fuel does not look like civilian routine.

Rubio has sold the administration’s harder line in other fights too, including when he defended Trump’s media access rules against outlet pushback.

The nuclear standoff now sits beside a shipping record that undercuts Tehran’s full-closure boast: nearly pre-conflict oil volumes on Rubio’s telling, above-prewar export days in September on the Reuters figures, and a peak week of tanker harassment nonetheless. Control rhetoric and tanker reality are not the same thing.

Poll interest in both men continues in separate lanes, including surveys where Rubio leads Vance in hypothetical matchups, but the Iran file in front of them is not a preference contest. It is a weapons threshold.

Washington’s stated price for a settlement is a meaningful reduction in enrichment capacity and a durable bar on a nuclear weapon. Tehran’s stated price is recognition of an enrichment right it will not yield. Trump has already rejected a strait-reopening proposal tied to fresh talks. Efforts to end the seven-month conflict remain stalled on those terms.

Other succession chatter has tracked reports Trump favors Vance over Rubio for 2028, yet the message from both officials on Iran this week was aligned: cut the highly enriched fuel path, or do not pretend the file is peaceful.

Iran had openings to deal and kept the 60% fuel instead, and a serious administration does not treat that as a misunderstanding.