The Washington Post reported on Friday that US President Donald Trump does not want to resume attacks on Iran "for now".
According to the newspaper, a US official who asked not to be named claimed that Trump does not want to resume attacks on Iran at present.
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Another official familiar with the negotiations said that talks between Iran and the United States had made gradual progress over recent weeks, according to the paper.
The official claimed that the Iranian side had agreed to discuss the nuclear file. He also said the American side was open to discussing Iran's request for economic incentives.
Trump also intends to discuss the Iran war with his Chinese and Russian counterparts during trilateral talks to be held in China next week, though he is not expected to raise the war in Ukraine, a senior US official said on Friday.
Speaking to reporters on a phone call, the official who asked not to be named said: "I think the president intends to talk about Iran during the trilateral meeting with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin."
He added that Washington has a "completely different track" for negotiations with Kyiv and Moscow, and said that "China is not really part of that track, so it does not seem appropriate to discuss Ukraine there".
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday that further American military operations against Iran were unnecessary, because the economic hardship the United States is inflicting on the exhausted Islamic Republic is extremely severe.
Rubio's remarks, made in a speech to the Federalist Society, echoed a statement Trump made earlier in the week, in which he said the war was "effectively over militarily".
Rubio said: "At the moment, frankly, the economic suffering we are inflicting on that regime is so severe that no military action is needed, because we have weakened them considerably… but I believe victory means ensuring they never possess a nuclear weapon."
Rubio also acknowledged the economic hardship Americans have experienced as a result of the war, which has pushed up fuel costs and affected nearly every sector of the global economy.
He said it would have been easy for Trump to ignore the threat posed by Iran's nuclear programme and avoid an unpopular war, and to "leave it to whoever comes after him to worry about", adding that the president decided it "would not be left unaddressed".
Rubio added: "But it is hard. It is not easy, it is difficult. And it often causes, as you know, economic and other suffering. That is why we understand that."
On 28 February, the United States and Israel launched a war on Iran that killed thousands of people. Tehran responded with attacks on Israel and on American sites in countries in the region.
The United States later carried out strikes on sites inside Iran, as negotiations with Tehran stalled over disputes concerning navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most important strategic routes for energy and goods shipments.
