Ashifa Kassam
The Guardian / February 1, 2026
US naval battle group gathers off Iran’s shores as supreme leader in Tehran warns attack would spark regional war.
Donald Trump has said Iran is talking to the US, hinting at a deal that would avoid the use of military strikes, as Iran’s supreme leader warned that any attack by the US would spark a regional war.
The US president’s comments came as Washington deployed a naval battle group led by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln off Iran’s shores, after Trump’s threats to intervene in Iran’s deadly crackdown on anti-government protests.
“The plan is that [Iran is] talking to us, and we’ll see if we can do something. Otherwise, we’ll see what happens … We have a big fleet heading out there,” Trump told Fox News. “They are negotiating, so we’ll see what happens.”
He said US allies in the region were not being told of plans for reasons of security. “Well, we can’t tell them the plan. If I told them the plan, it would be almost as bad as telling you the plan – it could be worse, actually,” he said.
Later on Saturday, Trump declined to say whether he had decided on a course of action regarding US intervention in Iran.
He sidestepped a question about whether Tehran would be emboldened if the US backed away from launching strikes, telling reporters: “Some people think that. Some people don’t.”
He said Iran should negotiate a “satisfactory” deal to prevent the country from getting any nuclear weapons, but said: “I don’t know that they will. But they are talking to us. Seriously talking to us.”
The arrival of the flotilla has raised fears of a direct confrontation with Iran, which has warned it would respond with missile strikes on US bases, ships and allies – notably Israel – in the event of an attack.
On Sunday, Iranian state television reported that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had warned that any attack by the Americans would have far-reaching consequences.
“The Americans should know that if they start a war, this time it will be a regional war,” Khamenei was quoted as saying. “We are not the instigators and we do not seek to attack any country. But the Iranian nation will deliver a firm blow to anyone who attacks or harasses it.”
A day earlier, Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, had downplayed Tehran’s interest in the conflict. “The Islamic republic of Iran has never sought, and in no way seeks, war and it is firmly convinced that a war would be in the interest of neither Iran nor the United States nor the region,” he said in a call with his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, according to the Iranian presidency.
Qatar said its prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, visited Tehran on Saturday and met Ali Larijani, the head of Iran’s supreme national security council, regarding “efforts to de-escalate tensions in the region”.
Trump has previously said he believes Iran would rather make a deal over its nuclear and missile programmes than face US military action, and Tehran has said it is ready for nuclear talks as long as its missiles and defence capabilities are not on the agenda.
“Contrary to the hype of the contrived media war, structural arrangements for negotiations are progressing,” Larijani said, one day after the Kremlin said he had held talks in Moscow with Vladimir Putin.
The commander-in-chief of Iran’s army, Amir Hatami, had earlier warned the US and Israel against any attack, saying his forces were “at full defensive and military readiness” to respond.
“If the enemy makes a mistake, without a doubt it will endanger its own security, the security of the region and the security of the Zionist regime,” Hatami said, according to the official news agency IRNA. He said Iran’s nuclear technology and expertise “cannot be eliminated”.
Iranian authorities rushed to deny that several incidents on Saturday were linked to any attack or sabotage, including an explosion in the southern Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas that local firefighters said was caused by a gas leak.
Iran has told ships it will conduct a live-fire drill on Sunday and Monday in the strait of Hormuz, a key transit hub for global energy supplies.
An Iranian official denied on Sunday that such a drill would take place, saying initial reports had been incorrect. “There was no plan for the Guards to hold military exercises there, and there was no official announcement about it. Only media reports which were wrong,” they told Reuters.
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) had warned Tehran against “any unsafe and unprofessional behaviour near US forces”.
The statement drew criticism from Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, who wrote on social media: “Operating off our shores, the US military is now attempting to dictate how our Powerful Armed Forces should conduct target practice in their own turf.”
The US designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organisation in 2019, and the EU did the same on Thursday.
In response, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad – Baqer Qalibaf, said on Sunday that Tehran would now consider all EU militaries to be terrorist groups.
“By trying to hit the Revolutionary Guards … the Europeans actually shot themselves in the foot and once again made a decision against the interests of their people by blindly obeying the Americans,” Qalibaf said.
He said the national security parliamentary commission would deliberate on the expulsion of EU countries’ military attaches and follow up with the foreign ministry.
On Sunday, Khamenei compared the countrywide protests to a “coup”, suggesting the government’s position had hardened, as calls grew in Iran for an independent inquiry into the number of people killed during the unrest.
Ashifa Kassam is The Guardian’s European community affairs correspondent
