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

China’s CGTN news said that the Marine Security Belt 2025 exercises began near the Iranian port of Chabahar on Tuesday and were aimed at strengthening “cooperation among the naval forces of the participating countries”.

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The naval drills will involve “striking maritime targets, damage control, and joint search and rescue operations”, according to CGTN.

“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, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Qatar, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Sri Lanka were also observing the drills.

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Although China and Russia do not typically patrol waters in the Middle East, the region’s waterways have become increasingly militarised in recent years.

In late 2023, Yemen’s Houthis began attacking ships linked to Israel in the Red Sea, in what they say is an act of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

The Houthis paused their attacks after a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel began in January but have threatened to resume military operations if Israel does not lift its renewed siege of Gaza, in which it has been blocking food, medicine and other essential supplies from entering the war-torn territory for 10 days.

The United States and other Western countries have also increased their presence in the Red Sea, with a 10-nation force announced in December 2023 to counter Houthi attacks. The US Navy also has a fleet based in Bahrain.

Iran nuclear programme

This year’s naval drills come as US President Donald Trump said he had sent a letter to the Iranian leadership seeking to revive talks on a nuclear deal, years after Trump withdrew the US from a previous deal during his first term in office.

“There are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal,” Trump told Fox Business last week.

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Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has accused Washington of seeking to impose even greater restrictions on Iran than in previous negotiations.

“Some bully governments insist on negotiations,” he said, according to state media. “But their negotiations are not aimed at solving issues, but to dominate and impose 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 Israel, which is thought to have some 90 nuclear warheads, Iran is not thought to have developed any of its own nuclear weapons.