US President Donald Trump said Saturday he will impose additional sanctions on Iran in an effort to prevent Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons, adding that military action was still a possibility.
Trump, who was speaking to reporters at the White House, made his comments after recently calling off military action against Iran to retaliate for the downing of a US military drone.
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On Thursday, an Iranian missile destroyed a US Global Hawk surveillance drone, an incident that Washington said happened in international airspace. Trump later said he had called off a military strike to retaliate because it could have killed 150 people.
"We are putting additional sanctions on Iran," Trump said. "In some cases, we are going slowly, but in other cases, we are moving rapidly."
The president said military action "is always on the table" against Iran.
But Trump also indicated he was open to reversing the escalation, adding he was willing to quickly reach a deal with Iran that he said would bolster the country's flagging economy.
"We will call it 'Let's make Iran great again,'" he said.
"The fact is we're not going to have Iran have a nuclear weapon," he said as he left the White House for a weekend at the Camp David presidential retreat. "And when they agree to that, they are going to have a wealthy country, they're going to be so happy and I'm going to be their best friend."
"I hope that happens. I hope that happens, but it may not," Trump said. He later said Iran will be hit with unspecified new sanctions on Monday.
He later wrote on Twitter from Camp David: "We are putting major additional Sanctions on Iran on Monday. I look forward to the day that Sanctions come off Iran, and they become a productive and prosperous nation again."
Both Trump and Tehran have said they are not seeking war, but Iran has warned of a "crushing" response if attacked.
"Regardless of any decision they [US officials] make … we will not allow any of Iran's borders to be violated. Iran will firmly confront any aggression or threat by America," Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi told the semiofficial Tasnim news agency on Saturday.
Any conflict in the Gulf region may spread uncontrollably, a senior Iranian military commander was cited as saying on Sunday, by the semiofficial Fars news agency.
"If a conflict breaks out in the region, no country would be able to manage its scope and timing," Maj. Gen. Gholamali Rashid said, according to Fars. "The American government must act responsibly to protect the lives of American troops by avoiding misconduct in the region."
A senior spokesman of Iran's Armed Forces, Abolfazl Shekarchi, told Tasnim on Saturday: "Any mistake by Iran's enemies, in particular, America and its regional allies, would be like firing at a powder keg that will burn America, its interests and its allies to the ground."
A senior commander of the paramilitary Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps struck a similarly defiant note, in comments quoted by the Islamic Republic News Agency.
"If the violation is repeated then our response will be repeated," said Brig. Gen. Amirali Hajizadeh, head of the Guards' aerospace division. "It's possible that this infringement of the Americans was carried out by a general or some operators."
Iran's Foreign Ministry summoned a United Arab Emirates envoy on Saturday because the UAE allowed the drone to be launched from a US military base on its territory, the Fars news agency reported.
The Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, published a map on Twitter with detailed coordinates which he said showed the drone was flying over the Islamic Republic's territorial waters.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement on Saturday that the United States had "shown beyond any doubt" that the drone was in international airspace.
"When the Iranian regime decides to forgo violence and meet our diplomacy with diplomacy, it knows how to reach us," he said. "Until then, our diplomatic isolation and economic pressure campaign against the regime will intensify."
He also denied reports US forces would evacuate personnel from a military base in neighboring Iraq over what military sources had said were "potential security threats."
World powers have called for calm and sent in envoys for talks to try to lower the temperature of a dispute that has pushed up the price of oil.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said European countries are still hoping that there can be a political solution.
"Naturally, we are worried about the situation and we're counting on diplomatic negotiations for a political solution to a very tense situation," Merkel said, without elaborating.
French President Emmanuel Macron was equally vague.
"I'm calling on all parties to be reasonable and keep talking," he said.
Britain's Foreign Office said Middle East Minister Andrew Murrison would visit Tehran on Sunday to raise concerns about "Iran's regional conduct and its threat to cease complying with the nuclear deal."
Iran has threatened to breach the deal if the European signatories to the agreement fail to salvage it by shielding Tehran from US sanctions.
"The Europeans will not be given more time beyond July 8 to save the deal," Mousavi said, referring to Iran's deadline of 60 days that Tehran announced in May.
Moscow, an Iran ally, also added its voice to calls for a careful approach.
"The situation in the Persian Gulf is quite tense, and this is a concern for us," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday. "We are following the situation carefully and calling on all countries involved for restraint."
The US, meanwhile, requested a closed-door UN Security Council meeting on Iran and the latest developments in the Gulf, diplomats said Friday.
The discussions would touch on both the recent attacks against oil tankers in the Gulf and the Iranian downing of the US drone.
Another diplomat told Agence France-Presse the meeting would take place Monday afternoon.
Separately, Iran has executed a former contract employee for the aerospace organization of its defense ministry on charges of spying for the US Central Intelligence Agency, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting news agency reported on Saturday.
