Secretary of State Marco Rubio and New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters Before Their Meeting

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Thank you for coming.

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary, do you expect Iran to come to the table?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Hope we have more news later today on that.

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary, can you tell me what do you think about Cuba’s president telling Newsweek that they’ll strike back against the U.S. if the U.S. launches operations there?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Okay, sure, yeah.  I don’t think much about what he has to say.

QUESTION:  So, Mr. Secretary, a message to other nations like New Zealand impacted by this war in Iran?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah.  The whole world’s been impacted unfortunately because Iran is violating every law known by striking commercial vessels in the Straits of Hormuz, and it’s a big problem for the world.  I mean, this is a regime that doesn’t believe in laws, rules, or anything like that.  It’s a state sponsor of terrorism, so it’s not surprising that they’re now conducting terrorist activity against commercial vessels.

So all right, thank you.