United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday spoke about Iran’s response to the proposal sent by America for ending the conflict in West Asia.

Rubio said that while Iran had not given a formal response to the US, an “exchange” of messages had signalled their “willingness” to talk.

“We haven’t gotten it yet,” Rubio said on any formal response from Iran on the US proposal. “We’ve had an exchange of messages and indications from the Iranian system — whatever’s left of it — about a willingness to talk about certain things,” the US secretary of state told reporters after the G7 talks in Paris, AFP reported.

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Speaking about the objectives in Iran, Rubio said, “We are ahead of schedule on most of them, and we can achieve them without any ground troops, without any.”

Regarding US’ war objectives, the secretary of state said these included destroying Iran’s missile and drone capabilities and factories to produce them, as well as its navy and air force.

Rubio said that the recent deployment of thousands more troops to the region were to provide US President Donald Trump with options to respond to contingencies.

“In terms of why there’s deployments, number one, the President has to be prepared for multiple contingencies… We are always going to be prepared to give the president maximum optionality and maximum opportunity to adjust the contingencies, should they emerge,” Reuters cited the US secretary of state as saying.

Rubio also urged European countries, which he said use the Strait of Hormuz for trade, to contribute to efforts to secure free passage through the waterway if Iran decides to set up a tolling system for it.