Israel would deploy its military if Iran were to try to block the Bab al-Mandeb strait that links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday.

Iran waved away US President Donald Trump's claims that talks with the country's leaders were imminent, saying "threats, sanctions and PR stunts won't work".

US President Donald Trump suggested Tuesday that talks with arch foe Iran were imminent, but the idea has been criticized in Tehran, with the country's foreign minister warning that "PR stunts won't work."

President Trump said Monday that he would meet Iran's leaders “without preconditions” and “anytime they want”, one week after tensions escalated between Washington and Tehran.

The Trump administration is quietly pushing ahead with a bid to create a new security and political alliance with six Gulf Arab states, Egypt and Jordan, in part to counter Iran’s expansion in the region, according to U.S. and Arab officials.

The United States has not instituted a policy of regime change or collapse in Iran, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Friday, saying the goal was still to curb what Washington sees as Iran’s threatening behavior in the Middle East.

Bahrain government backed statements of U.S President Donald Trump in which he threatened Iran with an attack “which few throughout history have ever suffered”.

President Donald Trump on Sunday warned Iran of consequences "the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered," if it threatens the United States.

Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei has called for better ties with the world - though not with the United States, according his official website Monday.

Washington will not budge on its decision to impose fresh sanctions on corporations operating in Iran, despite a European request for exemption, a media report said on Monday.

The United States is increasingly isolated in its move to reimpose sanctions on Tehran after quitting the international nuclear deal, President Hassan Rouhani said Saturday, vowing to resist American "plots."

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said regional oil exports may be threatened if the United States tries to pressure its allies to stop buying Iranian crude oil, his website reported on Tuesday.

Iran will allow private companies to export crude oil to help beat U.S. sanctions, First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri said on Sunday.

Iran is studying ways to keep exporting oil and other measures to counter U.S. economic sanctions, state news agency IRNA reported on Saturday.

In January, the Comoros Islands quietly cancelled a batch of its passports that foreigners had bought in recent years. The tiny nation off the east coast of Africa published no details of its reasons, saying only that the documents had been improperly issued.

Oil prices rose on Friday, rallying on concerns that U.S. sanctions against Iran would remove a substantial volume of crude oil from world markets at a time of rising global demand.

Three Iranian security personnel and three militants were killed in a cross-border attack on the frontier with Pakistan on Monday, Iran's Revolutionary Guards said in a statement posted on state media.

Cutting Iran’s oil from the global market could not take place easily and in a few months as demanded by the United Sates, an Iranian oil official told the semi-official Tasnim news agency on Wednesday

Crude futures jumped over 2 percent on Tuesday and U.S. oil topped $70 for the first time in two months as Washington pushed allies to halt imports of Iranian crude, which would constrain global supplies.

General Director of Anti-corruption and Economic and Electronic Security said that investigations carried out by the directorate led to identifying the place where “Saraya Al-Mukhtar” website is being managed from, adding that it is managed from“Iran”.