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President Donald Trump appears to have acknowledged that the United States is seeking to further strengthen its military assets in the Middle East, even as it continues to engage in diplomacy aimed at easing tensions with Iran.
The US president shared a Wall Street Journal article titled “Department of Defense prepares second aircraft carrier for deployment to Middle East” on his Truth Social platform on Thursday without comment.
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The article cited US officials as saying the Pentagon had ordered the military to prepare to deploy a carrier strike group to the region to join the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, which is already deployed.
The report came hours after President Trump welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has promoted a hawkish policy toward Iran, to the White House and reaffirmed his desire for a diplomatic deal with Iran.
“Other than my insistence that negotiations continue with Iran to see if a deal can be reached, no final agreement was reached,” Trump wrote after his meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“If we can do that, we will tell the Prime Minister that it is a priority. If we can’t do that, we will have to see what the consequences are.”
The United States and Iran held their first indirect talks since last year in Oman last week. Both Washington and the Iranian government said they would continue on a diplomatic path, but further talks have not yet been publicly scheduled.
The Iranian government has warned Washington not to allow Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to undermine the ongoing diplomatic push.
“Our negotiations are exclusively with the United States and we are not involved in any negotiations with Israel,” Iranian Security Chief Ali Larijani told Al Jazeera on Wednesday.
“However, Israel intervened in this process with the intention of undermining and sabotaging these negotiations.”
President Trump denied late Thursday that Netanyahu was lobbying against talks with Iran.
“I’m going to talk to them as much as I want and see if we can come to an agreement,” he told reporters.
The US president added that a deal with Iran could be reached next month and stressed that Iran should agree to the deal “quickly.”
President Trump said he wants a deal that guarantees Iran “doesn’t have nuclear weapons” and “doesn’t have missiles.”
However, Iran denies pursuing nuclear weapons and has ruled out any concessions on its missile arsenal. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Al Jazeera last week that the missile program is a defense issue that is “never negotiable.”
President Trump has repeatedly threatened new attacks on Iran if negotiations fail.
Israel launched a military offensive against Iran in June last year, killing the country’s top military officials, several nuclear scientists and hundreds of civilians.
The Iranian government has fired hundreds of missiles at Israel, dozens of which have breached the country’s air defenses.
The United States joined the Israeli operation and bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities before a ceasefire was established.
President Trump said Iran’s nuclear program had been “annihilated” by the U.S. attack.
However, it is unclear what happened to Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile.
Tehran is cautious about the impact of a U.S. attack, but insists it has the right to enrich uranium and that it does not violate its commitments under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).
During Netanyahu’s last visit to the United States in December, President Trump warned Iran not to rebuild its nuclear and missile programs.
President Trump told reporters at the time: “Now we’re hearing that Iran is trying to rise again. If that’s the case, we’re going to have to defeat Iran.” “We’re going to beat them. We’re going to beat the hell out of them. But hopefully that doesn’t happen.”
Days later, anti-government protests erupted in Iran. The US president backed the protesters and urged them to take over government institutions, saying “help is on the way.”
However, the Iranian government was able to quickly crush the protests with a heavy security crackdown, saying it included a US-backed plot to violently attack civilian institutions and government officials.
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the United States has smuggled about 6,000 Starlink satellite internet kits into Iran after the Iranian government shut down the internet last month to quell protests.
