Speaking on February 1, President Donald Trump said that if Iran does not reach an agreement on its nuclear program, the US will take further steps, and then "we will know" whether Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's warning about the risk of regional war is true or not.
Answering reporters' questions about Khamenei's statement, the US President said: "Of course he will say so". Mr. Trump emphasized that the US has deployed the largest and strongest warships in the world to the region, in a position very close to Iran.
It will only take a few days to act, and hopefully we will reach an agreement. If there is no agreement, then we will know if he is right or not," President Trump said.
Tensions between Washington and Tehran escalated after the US launched attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities in June last year. In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has repeatedly criticized the Iranian government's protest crackdown campaign, amid widespread protests and, according to a human rights organization, thousands of deaths.
From the beginning of the year, President Trump publicly expressed a tough stance on the Iranian leadership. In January, Mr. Trump said that it was time to "seek a new leadership in Iran".
As protests escalated last month, he continued to send messages in support of protesters, calling on them not to give up and asserting that "help is coming.
Meanwhile, Iran shows a cautious stance but does not completely close the door to dialogue. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that there are currently no plans for negotiations between Tehran and Washington, but affirmed that he is ready for the possibility of dialogue resuming in the future.
Also last week, Mr. Trump announced that a "giant fleet" was on its way to Iran. In a post on the social network Truth Social, the US President affirmed that this force "is ready, capable and can quickly complete its mission, with speed and violence if necessary".
Mr. Trump said the fleet is larger than the force previously deployed in the campaign against Venezuela, and reiterated the attacks on Iran in June with a warning that the next attack would be much worse.
Mr. Trump called on Iran to quickly sit down at the negotiating table to reach a fair and balanced agreement, with the key condition of no nuclear weapons.
Reacting to Mr. Trump's statements, Mr. Ali Shamkhani, senior advisor to the Iranian Supreme Leader, warned that any US military action, at any location or level, would be considered the beginning of a war. He emphasized that Iran's response would be "immediate, comprehensive and unprecedented".
