Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed on Wednesday that Iran requested to change locations for talks with its U.S. counterparts, following several reports on the matter.
"We thought we had an established forum that had been agreed to in Turkey. It was put together by a number of partners who wanted to attend and be a part of it," Rubio said when taking questions from reporters on Wednesday.
"I saw conflicting reports yesterday from the Iranian side saying that they had not agreed to that. So, that's still being worked through. At the end of the day, the United States is prepared to engage in, has always been prepared to engage with Iran."
A source familiar with the discussions told Fox News on Tuesday that Iran had requested to hold nuclear talks with the U.S. in Oman on Friday. Additionally, Donald Trump said the U.S. would act if protesters were met with violence. Rubio credited Trump's tough talk with the cancellation of protesters' executions, something that the regime has denied.
"The Iranian people and the Iranian regime are very unalike," Rubio said. "The leadership of Iran at the clerical level does not reflect the people of Iran. I know of no other country where there's a bigger difference between the people that lead the country and the people who live there."
Rubio said that the Islamic regime is unable to fix the economic problems plaguing its people because Iranian leaders are using the country's money and resources to sponsor terrorism and proxy groups around the world.
On Tuesday, the U.S. military shot down an Iranian drone after it "aggressively approached a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier with unclear intent," a U.S. Central Command spokesman told Fox News.
Iran later claimed that the drone was conducting surveillance as part of a "routine and lawful mission over international waters."
Fox News Digital's Michael Dorgan, Greg Norman-Diamond and Liz Friden, and Fox News' Aishah Hasnie contributed to this report.