U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday slammed Iranian efforts to control the Strait of Hormuz, following a report that Tehran has created an authority to approve transit through the vital waterway.

"Iran now claims that they own, that they have a right to control, an international waterway... That's an unacceptable thing that they're trying to normalise," Rubio told reporters during a visit to Rome.

The United Arab Emirates said Friday its air defenses engaged missiles and drones coming from Iran, hours after the United States and the Islamic republic traded fire and strained a fragile truce.

"UAE air defenses are currently engaging missile and drone attacks originating from Iran," the defense ministry said on X, adding that interception sounds were heard "across various parts of the country".

The U.S. military said it carried out strikes on Iranian military targets in response, although Tehran charged that it was Washington that had initiated the exchange of fire.

The latest violence threatens to unravel a fragile truce in effect since April 8 that brought an end to weeks of U.S.-Israeli attacks on the Islamic republic, which has retaliated with strikes across the Middle East and by blocking the strait, a vital route for oil and gas shipments.

Iran said it was reviewing the latest American proposals on ending the war, as U.S. President Donald Trump threatened the country with a new wave of bombing unless a deal is reached that includes reopening the crucial Strait of Hormuz to international shipping.

Hope that the two-month conflict could soon end buoyed international markets on Thursday, even as the U.S. military fired on an Iranian oil tanker attempting to breach an American blockade of Iran's ports hours earlier. The developments followed days of mixed messaging from the Trump administration over its strategy to end the war.

France's aircraft carrier strike group is moving south of the Suez Canal and into the Red Sea in preparation for a potential French-British mission in the Strait of Hormuz, French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday.

The deployment puts Europe's most powerful warship closer to the strait whose effective closure has come to epitomize the war in Iran, stranding hundreds of ships and triggering what the International Energy Agency calls the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.

Iran denied on Thursday attacking a South Korean cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz this week, as U.S. President Donald Trump said a deal to end the war was "very possible" but warned Washington would resume bombing if talks failed.

Tehran's embassy in Seoul said it "firmly rejects and categorically denies" allegations that its armed forces were behind a blast aboard the Panama-flagged HMM Namu, which caught fire on Monday while transiting the strategic waterway with 24 crew members on board.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that a deal with Iran to end the Middle East war was "very possible" following "very good talks" over the past day.

"We've had very good talks over the last 24 hours, and it's very possible that we'll make a deal," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

U.S. President Donald Trump expressed optimism about striking a deal with Iran, which could include Iran exporting its highly enriched uranium to the United States, in a phone call Wednesday with PBS News.

Trump said he feels the U.S. is closing in on a deal, "but I felt that way before with them, so we'll see what happens."

Iran foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said Wednesday that a U.S. proposal to end the war is still "under review" by Tehran, local media reported.

U.S. President Donald Trump issued an ultimatum Wednesday for Iran to accept a deal to end the war or face renewed, more intense U.S. bombing, in the latest of a series of abrupt policy shifts.

"Assuming Iran agrees to give what has been agreed to, which is perhaps a big assumption, the already legendary Epic Fury will be at an end," Trump posted on his Truth Social platform," using the U.S. name for its campaign against Iran.