Iran conducts maritime drills ahead of Geneva talks with US
發佈日期: 2026-02-17 20:55
TVB News
Iran and the United States were holding indirect talks on Tuesday in Geneva aimed at resolving their long-running nuclear dispute.
However, with little clear indication of compromise on both sides, Washington and Tehran say they are ready for any fall-out from failed talks.
US President Donald Trump says he believes Iran wants to make a deal.
General Mohammad Pakpour, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander in chief, overseeing the drill from a military vessel. And from the air.
Iran's top military leaders are rarely seen in public, being the target of past Israeli assassination attempts, most of them successful.
Tehran is more careful these days with Pakpour directing military exercises in the maritime area around Iran on Monday.
State TV said it was a drill testing Iran's intelligence and operational capabilities in the Strait of Hormuz, Persian Gulf, and Oman Sea.
These waterways are crucial international trade routes through which 20 percent of the world's oil passes.
Live fire drills are also expected, with US President Donald Trump sending an armada of vessels to the region ready to strike Iran.
Whether those attacks happen will depend on the success of talks mediated by Oman that are underway in Geneva between Iranian and US negotiators.
Oman's Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi met with his Swiss counterpart Ignazio Cassis ahead of the talks involving US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and an Iranian delegation led by its foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi.
Araghchi wrote on X that: "I am in Geneva with real ideas to achieve a fair and equitable deal. What is not on the table: submission before threats."
The Trump administration is seeking a deal to ensure Iran does not develop nuclear weapons.
"So I'll be involved in those talks indirectly, that they'll be very important, that we'll see what can happen," said Trump. "It's been typically a very tough negotiator. They're good negotiators, or bad negotiators. I would say they're bad negotiators, because we could have had a deal instead of sending the B-2s in to knock out their nuclear potential and we had to send the B-2s. "I hope, I hope they're going to be more reasonable. They want to make a deal."
