WASHINGTON, Jan 25 (AFP): US President Donald Trump said Thursday he hoped to avoid military strikes on Iran's nuclear programme, an option long mulled by Israel.
Asked if he would support military action against Iranian nuclear facilities, Trump told reporters he was going to speak to unspecified "very high-level people" about the issue.
"That could be worked out without having to worry about it," Trump said of the Iranian nuclear issue.
"It would be really nice if that could be worked out without having to go that further step," he said of military action.
On diplomatic prospects with Iran, Trump said, "Iran hopefully will make a deal -- and if they don't make a deal, I guess that's OK, too."
Trump during his first term withdrew from a nuclear deal negotiated under former president Barack Obama and imposed sweeping sanctions, winning praise from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who calls Tehran's cleric-run government an existential threat.
Trump, who vowed "maximum pressure" on Iran, also ordered a 2020 strike that killed senior Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad.
But Trump backed off on calls for wider military action and, since winning another term, has distanced himself from advisors who chose a hawkish course on Iran.
According to The New York Times, Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur and Trump confidante, met a senior Iranian official after the election to seek to defuse tensions.
Iran Guards conduct
naval drills in Gulf
Iran's Revolutionary Guards conducted naval drills on Friday in the Gulf and strategic Strait of Hormuz as part of a series of nationwide military exercises, state media reported.
The drills-which state TV showed featured fast boats, shore-to-sea missiles and surface-to-surface missiles-are part of a string of exercises, dubbed Eqtedar or "might" in Farsi, that began in early January and are set to continue until mid-March.
Iran's army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have been taking part.
"The message of this exercise is peace and friendship for neighbouring countries and that we are capable of creating the security of this strategically sensitive region ourselves," the IRGC's naval commander Rear Admiral Alireza Tangsiri told state TV.
Three strategic islands-Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa-are located in the Gulf near the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of world oil output passes.
They have been a source of contention between the United Arab Emirates and Iran for decades.
Tangsiri added that the exercises are held to "confront any invasion by extra-regional forces and if the enemy wants to threaten the interests of our heroic nation in this region, it will definitely receive a very strong response".
In previous drills, the armed forces unveiled an advanced reconnaissance ship as well as conducted exercises on safeguarding Iran's nuclear facilities in the western and central parts of the country.
The military activities are taking place with Iran's nuclear programme under close watch as US President Donald Trump returns to the White House.
In his first term, Trump pulled the United States out of a 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran and ordered the killing of veteran Guards commander Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike in neighbouring Iraq.
