President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio disputed Iranian media reports that Tehran had broken off peace talks, stressing the U.S. remains in negotiations with the Islamic Republic.

Rubio also told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that “there is the prospect” Iran “could negotiate aspects of their nuclear program.” Trump has insisted that Iran cannot develop a nuclear weapon and must turn over its stockpile of enriched uranium.

On Monday, the Tasnim News Agency, affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, reported that Iranian negotiators would stop exchanging messages with the U.S. through intermediaries and that Tehran would move to fully close the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping lane through which about 20% of global petroleum consumption passes.

Iran’s Fars news agency reported Tuesday morning that Tehran and Washington stopped exchanging messages several days ago.

“Fake News Reports that the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the U.S.A., stopped speaking a few days ago are false and erroneous,” Trump wrote Tuesday on Truth Social. “The conversations between us have been going on continuously, including four days ago, three days ago, two days ago, one day ago, and today.

“Where they lead, one never knows, but as I told Iran, ‘It’s time, one way or another, for you to make a Deal. You’ve been doing this for 47 years, and it cannot be allowed to go on any longer!’”

On Monday, Trump reportedly said he was unconcerned about reports that Iran might halt negotiations. He also said Iran had not told him it would stop negotiations.

Rubio was appearing before Congress for the first time since the Iran conflict began Feb. 28 with U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Tehran’s political leadership and military infrastructure. He told the Foreign Relations Committee that “we are in talks” with Iran.

“Now, we are in talks,” Rubio said in comments carried live on the free Newsmax2 streaming platform. “And I say talks because talks with Iran are not talks like with Switzerland. They’re very different. They require the use of intermediaries unfortunately.”

The hearing came amid growing unease among Republicans and Democrats in Congress about the conflict and its economic fallout. Lawmakers have also questioned Trump’s ability to continue military operations without congressional authorization.

“There is the prospect before us, which could happen today, it could happen tomorrow, it could happen next week,” Rubio said. “For the first time, certainly in my memory, [Iran has] agreed to negotiate aspects of their nuclear program that just a month ago, a year ago they were refusing to even mention, much less enter into discussions about.

“That is not a guarantee it ultimately will lead that’s acceptable to the Senate or acceptable to the American people. But we will be able to engage them in a process that truly will test the proposition of how far they will be willing to go.”

Rubio said peace talks are complicated because Iran’s leadership structure is so fractured that it can take days to get responses.

“We are hopeful something like that can happen in which the straits would reopen, we would enter into a period of negotiations on very specific topics, delineated negotiations in hopes of reaching an outcome that’s acceptable to us and something they would be able to do as well,” he said.

“If it doesn’t work out, then obviously we still have a problem with respect to their nuclear ambitions. But what they won’t have is their conventional [military] shield to hide behind any longer.”