WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said a US “armada” is heading toward the Gulf as Washington keeps a close eye on Iran, even as he downplayed the prospect of imminent military action and indicated Tehran appeared open to talks.
Trump has repeatedly left open the option of new military action against Iran after Washington backed and joined Israel’s 12-day war in June aimed at degrading Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.
The prospect of immediate US action appeared to recede in recent days, with both sides insisting on giving diplomacy a chance.
On his way back from the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Trump told reporters on Air Force One that the United States was sending a “massive fleet” toward Iran “just in case.”
“We’re watching Iran,” he said. “I’d rather not see anything happen but we’re watching them very closely.”
Addressing the WEF on Thursday, Trump said the United States attacked Iranian uranium enrichment sites last year to prevent Tehran from making a nuclear weapon, which Iran denies.
“Can’t let that happen,” he said, adding: “And Iran does want to talk, and we’ll talk.”
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards commander also warned Washington on Thursday that the force had its “finger on the trigger.”
A wave of protests starting in late December shook Iran’s clerical leadership under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but the movement has largely subsided after a crackdown that activists say killed thousands, accompanied by a nationwide internet blackout.
Last week, Trump pulled back from a threat to strike Iran over its deadly crackdown on the protests after the White House said Tehran had halted planned executions of demonstrators.
In a standoff marked by seesawing rhetoric, Trump on Tuesday warned Iran’s leaders that the United States would “wipe them off the face of this Earth” if there was any attack on him in response to a strike targeting Khamenei.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, meanwhile, accused the United States and Israel on Thursday of stoking the protests as a “cowardly revenge… for the defeat in the 12-Day War.”
Guards commander General Mohammad Pakpour warned Israel and the United States “to avoid any miscalculations” and learn from “what they learned in the 12-day imposed war, so that they do not face a more painful and regrettable fate.”
“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and dear Iran have their finger on the trigger, more prepared than ever, ready to carry out the orders and measures of the supreme commander-in-chief,” he said, according to state television.
Activists say the Guards played a frontline role in the deadly crackdown on protests.
The group is designated a terrorist entity by countries including Australia, Canada and the United States, and campaigners have long urged similar action by the EU and Britain.
General Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi, head of Iran’s joint command headquarters, warned that if America attacked, “all US interests, bases and centres of influence” would be “legitimate targets” for Iranian forces.
Iranian authorities gave their first official toll from the protests on Wednesday, saying 3,117 people were killed.
The statement from Iran’s Foundation for Martyrs and Veterans distinguished between “martyrs” – members of security forces or innocent bystanders – and what it called US-backed “rioters.” It said 2,427 of the dead were “martyrs.”
Pezeshkian said Thursday that protest was “the natural right of citizens” but that a distinction must be drawn between protesters whose “hands are stained with the blood of innocent people.”
Rights groups say the real toll could be far higher, even more than 20,000, due to security forces firing directly on protesters.
Efforts to confirm the scale of deaths have been hampered by a nationwide internet shutdown, which monitor NetBlocks said lasted more than two weeks.
“All the evidence gradually emerging from inside Iran shows that the real number of people killed in the protests is far higher than the official figure,” said Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of Iran Human Rights. He said the authorities’ toll has “no credibility whatsoever.”
Iran Human Rights has verified at least 3,428 deaths, while US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) has documented 4,902 deaths.
HRANA said at least 26,541 people have been arrested. On Thursday, state TV reported more than 200 additional arrests in provinces including Kermanshah in the west and Isfahan in central Iran.
—AFP
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