Jan. 30 (UPI) -- U.S. President Donald Trump spelled out his terms to Iran if it wants to avoid being struck by a U.S. armada standing by in the Gulf, saying it needed to decommission its nuclear program and stop using deadly force against its own people.
Speaking to reporters in Washington at the premiere of first lady Melania Trump's documentary Melania, Trump said that he'd been in contact with the Iranian leadership and told them they needed to do two things: "Number one, no nuclear. And number two, stop killing protesters."
"They're killing them by the thousands. We have a lot of very big, very powerful ships sailing to Iran right now, and it would be great if we didn't have to use them," he said.
Trump's demand came two days after he announced he had ordered the deployment of a "massive" fleet of U.S. Navy vessels to Iran headed by the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, an even larger "armada" than that used in Venezuela, in order to pressure Tehran to negotiate a nuclear deal.
The developments saw a flurry of diplomatic activity in the region Friday, with Turkish President Recep Erdogan stepping in to offer to help try to defuse the situation in a phone call with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
