By Steve Holland and Bo Erickson
WASHINGTON, Jan 29 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Thursday he planned to speak with Iran, even as the U.S. dispatched another warship to the Middle East and Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said the military would be ready to carry out whatever the president decided.
Speaking to reporters, Trump did not elaborate on the nature or timing of any dialogue or say who from Washington would lead the negotiations.
"I am planning on it, yeah," Trump said when asked about possible discussions with Tehran. "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."
U.S. officials say Trump is reviewing his options but has not decided whether to strike Iran. U.S.-Iranian tensions have soared in recent weeks after a bloody crackdown on protests across Iran by its clerical authorities.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene if Iran continued to kill protesters, but the countrywide demonstrations over economic privations and political repression have since abated.
He has said the United States would act if Tehran resumed its nuclear program after air strikes in June by Israeli and U.S. forces on key nuclear installations.
With a large U.S. military force gathered in the region, Hegseth was asked earlier in the day by Trump at a cabinet meeting to comment on the situation in Iran.
"They should not pursue nuclear capabilities. We will be prepared to deliver whatever this president expects of the War Department," Hegseth said, referring to the Trump administration's unofficial renaming of the Defense Department.
(Reporting by Steve Holland, Bo Erickson, Susan Heavey, Kanishka Singh and Daphne Psaledakis; Editing by David Ljunggren, Ross Colvin, Rod Nickel and William Mallard)
