NEW YORK, Feb 14 (BBC/AFP): US President Donald Trump says regime change in Iran is "the best thing that could happen", signifying one of his clearest endorsements for replacing the clerical establishment.
"For 47 years, they've been talking and talking and talking. In the meantime, we've lost a lot of lives," he said on Friday.
Trump declined to specify who he wants to lead Iran, but noted "there are people" who could take over. Iran's clerical ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not yet responded to Trump's latest remarks.
Meanwhile, the US sent a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East to add pressure on Iran to secure a nuclear deal.
The USS Gerald R Ford, the world's largest warship and the newest US aircraft carrier, is set to relocate "very soon" from the Caribbean to the Middle East, Trump said.
On his Truth Social platform, Trump shared an aerial photograph of the carrier, which appears in transit on its way to join a second US vessel - the USS Abraham Lincoln - already stationed in the Middle East.
The Pentagon sent the aircraft carrier in January after the US threatened to strike Iran to stop a government crackdown on mass protests in which thousands of people were killed.
The wave of demonstrations marked some of the most dramatic upheavals in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, which installed the clerical system led by a Supreme Leader.
While Trump has threatened strikes on Iran if no nuclear agreement can be reached, he insisted after talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday at the White House that talks with Tehran would continue.
The exiled son of Iran's last shah called on US President Donald Trump on Saturday to help the Iranian people, a day after the American leader said a change of power would be the "best thing".
US-based Reza Pahlavi, who has not returned to Iran since before the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted the monarchy, added it was "time to end the Islamic republic" while speaking to reporters at the Munich Security Conference.
The opposition figure has urged Iranians at home and abroad to continue demonstrations against the authorities, calling on them to chant slogans from their homes and rooftops at 8:00 pm on Saturday and Sunday, to coincide with protests in Germany and elsewhere.
Trump had said Friday that a change of government in Iran would be the "best thing that could happen", as he sent a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East to ratchet up military pressure on the Islamic republic.
He had earlier threatened military intervention to support a wave of street protests in Iran that peaked in January and were met by a violent crackdown that rights groups say killed thousands.
"To President Trump... The Iranian people heard you say help is on the way, and they have faith in you. Help them," Pahlavi told reporters in Munich.
"It is time to end the Islamic republic. This is the demand echoing from the bloodshed of my compatriots who are not asking us to fix the regime but to help them bury it," he added.
Also on Saturday, Canada issued additional sanctions against Iran.
