Amid rising tensions in the Gulf, Iran on Thursday rejected negotiations with the US and said it was showing “maximum restraint” after Washington sent extra military forces to the region against what it claimed was an imminent threat from Tehran.
US officials meanwhile said the deployment of an aircraft carrier strike group and B-52 bombers to the Gulf, one of the world’s most strategic waterways, was in reaction to photographs showing that Iran had loaded missiles onto small traditional boats.
In Tokyo for talks with Japanese officials, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called the US escalation “unacceptable.”
There was “no possibility” of negotiations with the United States, he told reporters. “I don’t know why President Trump is confident.”
“We exercise maximum restraint,” he said, despite the Trump administration’s unilateral move last year to withdraw from the international agreement on Iran’s nuclear program.
On Wednesday, Trump predicted Iran would “soon” want to negotiate, even as the State Department ordered the evacuation of most personnel from the US embassy and consulate in Iraq, fearing an attack by Iranian-directed Shiite militias.
“I’m sure that Iran will want to talk soon,” the president tweeted.
The White House and Pentagon remained under pressure to demonstrate the reason for the huge buildup in forces and heightened rhetoric of the past 11 days.
Two major pro-Iran armed groups in Iraq rejected allegations that they were plotting an attack on US diplomatic installations in the country.
