Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei has warned that any attacks on his country could spark a regional conflict, the BBC reports.
Khamenei said the Americans should know that if they start a war, this time the war will spread throughout the region.
US President Donald Trump has said that Iran is in serious talks and that he hopes it will lead to an acceptable outcome, while Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told CNN he was confident a deal on Tehran’s nuclear program was possible. Trump has threatened military intervention if Iran does not halt its nuclear program and end its violent crackdown on protesters.
Araghchi said Iran had unfortunately lost trust in the United States as a reliable negotiating partner, but that communication through friendly countries in the Middle East had yielded results in discussions with the Americans. Iranian security official Ali Larijani had previously reported that progress had been made in developing guidelines for the talks.
Meanwhile, the United States continues to increase its military presence in the region, and has sent a warship to relocate destroyers, the USS Abraham Lincoln, and the US military has reported on its activities in the Arabian Sea.
Iran was expected to begin two days of exercises in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important shipping lanes, on the 1st of February. However, on the 1st of February, Reuters, citing an Iranian official, reported that the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fleet had not planned any exercises.
About a fifth of the world’s oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz.
At its narrowest point, Iran is separated from Oman by a strip of water about 33 kilometers wide, and Iran has previously threatened to stop traffic in the strait if threatened.
The United States has warned Iran to avoid “unprofessional behavior,” to which Arangchi responded that the US military is now trying to show how Iranian armed forces should conduct exercises in its waters.
On the 31st of January, explosions rocked two Iranian cities, killing five and wounding at least 14. Authorities in both cases said the explosions were caused by gas leaks.
Trump said in late January that Iran could do two things to avoid US military intervention. First, it must abandon its nuclear program, and second, it must stop killing protesters.
The US-based human rights group HRANA has reported that more than 6,300 people have been confirmed dead since the protests began in late December, with another 17,000 deaths under investigation. Meanwhile, Norway’s IHR has warned that the death toll could exceed 25,000. Protesters have told the BBC that the brutal crackdown on the protests is unprecedented. Meanwhile, Khamenei said on the 1st of February that protesters were attacking the police, the IRGC and various institutions, including banks and mosques, and that what happened was a crackdown on coup attempts.
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