Iran, Russia, and China are scheduled to hold joint naval exercises beginning on Tuesday near the southeastern Iranian port of Chabahar, according to Iranian state media.
The drills will include “warships and combat and support vessels of the Chinese and Russian naval forces, as well as the warships of Iran’s naval forces of the army and the Revolutionary Guards,” Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is the theocratically-controlled wing of the Iranian military. It has been designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.
Tasnim said the exercises will move into “the northern Indian Ocean” after beginning near Chabahar, under observation by invited guests including Azerbaijan, South Africa, Oman, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Qatar, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, and Sri Lanka.
Tehran dubbed the joint effort “Security Belt-2025” and said it was intended to strengthen regional security. Iranian media reports did not say when the exercises would end.
The most immediate confirmation of the joint drill came from China, which said through a Defense Ministry social media account that it would send “a destroyer and a supply ship” to participate. The Russian Defense Ministry then said it dispatched two corvettes, a tanker, and a dozen other support vessels, gunboats, and helicopters to join the training maneuvers.
Iranian, Chinese, and Russian ships were seen massing in the Gulf of Oman on Monday, including the ships China and Russia said they would contribute. China’s guided missile destroyer Baotou and the accompanying supply ship were evidently detached from a task force that has been patrolling in the Gulf of Aden since December.
President Donald Trump said on Monday he was “not at all” worried about the Iran-China-Russia joint military exercise, “because we’re stronger than all of them.”
“We have more power than all of them. I rebuilt the military. Unfortunately, Biden did nothing with it, but I rebuilt the military,” the president told reporters aboard Air Force One.
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