US flexes military muscle in Arabian Sea but open to ‘no preconditions’ Iran talks
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday that the Trump administration is ready for unconditional discussions with Iran in an effort to ease rising tensions that have sparked fears of conflict.
But the United States will not relent in trying to pressure Iran to change its behavior in the Middle East, America’s top diplomat said.
His comments came as the US military conducted exercises in the Arabian Sea with a B-52 bomber and an aircraft carrier dispatched to the region in response to an Iranian threat.
The exercise saw F/A-18 Super Hornets, MH-60 Sea Hawk helicopters and E-2D Growlers from the USS Abraham Lincoln fly with the B-52 bomber, the Air Force said Sunday.
The aircraft also “simulated strike operations” in the exercise, which took place on Saturday.
In a reminder that tensions are still high, Yahya Rahim Safavi, a top military aide to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Sunday that US military vessels in the Gulf are within range of Iranian missiles and warned warned that any clash between the two countries would push oil prices above $100 a barrel.
Pompeo repeated long-standing US accusations that Iran is bent on destabilizing the region, but he also held out the possibility of talks as President Donald Trump has suggested.
Pompeo made the talks offer during a visit to Switzerland, the country that long has represented American interests in Iran, as part of a European trip aimed at assuring wary leaders that the US is not eager for war.
“We're prepared to engage in a conversation with no preconditions,” Pompeo said. “We're ready to sit down with them, but the American effort to fundamentally reverse the malign activity of this Islamic Republic, this revolutionary force, is going to continue.”
Pompeo’s meeting with Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis in the southern Swiss town of Bellinzona came amid concerns about the potential for escalation and miscalculation with Iran — a situation that has many in Europe and the Middle East on edge.
Cassis, whose country has been an intermediary between the two before, made no secret of that nervousness.
“The situation is very tense. We are fully aware, both parties are fully aware, of this tension. Switzerland, of course, wishes there is no escalation, no escalation to violence,” he said.
Cassis said Switzerland would be pleased to serve as an intermediary, but not a “mediator,” between the United States and Iran. To do so, however, would require requests from both sides, he said.