Russia, China and Iran are holding joint drills this week in the Gulf of Oman amid heightened tensions with the U.S. to "help deepen practical cooperation between the participating countries' navies ... and inject positive energy into regional peace and stability," the Chinese Ministry said in a statement.
Other countries will also participate in "Security Bond 2023," which started today and continues through Sunday, China said.
Russia's defense ministry said the active phase of the exercises would be on March 16-17, involving various joint maneuvers including daytime and night-time artillery firing.
U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Wednesday that the White House was not concerned by the joint training exercise. Kirby said the U.S. and other nations conduct training exercises all the time and this won't be the first time that the Russians and Chinese have trained together.
"We're going to watch it; we'll monitor it, obviously, to make sure that there's no threat resulting from this training exercise to our national security interests or those of our allies and partners in the region," Kirby said on CNN. "But nations train. We do it all the time. We'll watch it as best we can."
The exercises come amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and China over a range of issues, including China's refusal to criticize Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine and continuing support for the Russian economy.
The U.S. and its allies have condemned the invasion, imposed punishing economic sanctions on Russia and supplied Ukraine with defensive arms. Iran and the U.S. have been adversaries since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979 and the taking of U.S. diplomats as hostages.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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