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WASHINGTON — <\/span>Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to France this week to try to sell America\u2019s skeptical Group of Seven allies on the strategy of the Iran war<\/a> that has sent global fuel prices soaring<\/a>, the State Department said Tuesday.<\/p>\n Rubio will attend a G7 foreign ministers meeting near Versailles outside of Paris on Friday \u201cto advance key U.S. interests\u201d and \u201cdiscuss shared security concerns and opportunities for cooperation,\u201d the department said.<\/p>\n \u201cAreas of focus will include the Russia-Ukraine war<\/a>, the situation in the Middle East, and threats across the world to peace and stability,\u201d the department said in a statement released amid conflicting accounts over whether the U.S. and Iran are talking<\/a> about a resolution to the conflict. <\/p>\n President Donald Trump said Monday that the U.S. and Iran have had discussions, although Iran has denied it. And numerous other countries are involved in nascent efforts to find an off-ramp to the crisis, which has caused the price of oil to skyrocket with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz<\/a> to most shipping, including tankers.<\/p>\n Nearly all of the other G7 nations \u2014 Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan \u2014 have reacted coolly at best to the U.S.-Israeli military operation against Iran and have declined to participate, drawing Trump’s ire even as he maintains the U.S. doesn’t need their help.<\/p>\n Trump has lashed out<\/a> a number of G7 members and NATO allies for not responding to his calls for help in reopening the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>, although in recent days several of them had indicated a willingness to back appropriate action to restore the key waterway to normal traffic<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n