The naval drills will involve striking maritime targets, damage control, and joint search and rescue operations Photo: AP The naval drills will involve striking maritime targets, damage control, and joint search and rescue operations Photo: AP

Iran, Russia, and China have launched joint naval drills in the Gulf of Oman, marking the fifth consecutive year the three countries have conducted military exercises together.

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According to China’s CGTN news, the Marine Security Belt 2025 exercises began near the Iranian port of Chabahar on Tuesday, focusing on strengthening "cooperation among the naval forces of the participating nations."

The naval drills will involve striking maritime targets, damage control, and joint search and rescue operations, the CGTN report said.

“Over the course of two days, the ships’ crews conducted daytime and nighttime fire from large-calibre machine guns and small arms at targets simulating unmanned boats and unmanned aerial vehicles of a mock enemy,” Russia’s Interfax news agency reported, citing a statement from the Russian Ministry of Defence.

Iran’s Press TV said naval groups from Azerbaijan, South Africa, Oman,9x999 slots Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Qatar, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Sri Lanka were also observing the drills.

While China and Russia do not typically patrol Middle Eastern waters, the region’s waterways have become increasingly militarized in recent years.

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This year’s naval drills come as former US President Donald Trump revealed he had sent a letter to Iranian leaders, hoping to revive negotiations on a nuclear deal—years after withdrawing the US from a previous agreement during his first term. “There are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal,” Trump told Fox Business last week.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has accused Washington of attempting to impose even stricter conditions than those in prior negotiations. “Some bully governments insist on negotiations,” he said, according to state media. “But their negotiations are not about solving problems; they’re about dominating and imposing their own expectations.”

“For them, negotiation is a means to introduce new demands. The issue is not just about nuclear matters, they raise new expectations that Iran will certainly not accept,” Khamenei said.

Trump unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in 2018 and re-imposed sanctions on Tehran. Despite complying with the nuclear agreement for more than a year after the US withdrawal, Iran gradually reduced its commitments, citing the failure of the deal’s remaining signatories to protect its interests.

Unlike Israelcucapg, which is thought to have some 90 nuclear warheads, Iran is not thought to have developed any of its own nuclear weapons.