PARIS: The United States was preparing on Friday to deploy a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East after President Donald Trump warned of “traumatic” consequences if Tehran failed to agree a deal over its nuclear programme.
Tensions have escalated between the Islamic republic and its traditional foe Washington in the wake of a deadly crackdown by security forces on protests last month that rights groups say killed thousands.
While the protests have subsided for now in the face of the repression, US-based Reza Pahlavi, the son of the shah ousted by the 1979 Islamic revolution, urged Iranians to chant slogans against the clerical establishment in the coming days to coincide with demonstrations abroad.
Rather than pointing to the crackdown — which has seen tens of thousands arrested and hundreds facing possible execution, according to rights groups — Trump has made refraining from military action conditional on a deal to curb Iran’s nuclear programme, which the West fears is aimed at making a bomb.
“We have to make a deal, otherwise it’s going to be very traumatic, very traumatic. I don’t want that to happen, but we have to make a deal,” Trump told reporters on Thursday.
Trump had already sent one aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, to the Middle East in a warning to Tehran, and multiple US media outlets said a second carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, and its escort ships would also be sent to the region.
The vessels led by the Ford, currently deployed to the Caribbean, are not expected to return to their home ports until late April or early May, the New York Times said.
Representatives of Iran and the United States, who have had no diplomatic relations since shortly after the revolution, held talks on the nuclear programme last week in Oman.
While no dates have been set for new talks, there have been indications that Trump is upbeat about the prospects for a deal.
Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu said after meeting Trump in Washington that the US leader believed he may clinch a “good deal”, though the Israeli prime minister himself expressed scepticism at the quality of any agreement if it didn’t also cover Iran’s ballistic missiles and support for regional proxies.
The United States joined Israel’s 12-day war against the Islamic republic in June, carrying out strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. But there is no consensus on what Washington would target in new strikes or whether it would seek to slacken supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s grip on power.
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