The exercise is aimed at strengthening cooperation between the three countries and is ongoing as Iran denounces the United States of “bullying.”
Iran, Russia and China have begun joint naval training in the Gulf of Oman, marking the fifth year in which the three countries have conducted military training together.
According to China’s CGTN News, the Marine Corps Security Belt 2025 exercise begins on Tuesday near Iran’s Chabahar port and aims to strengthen “cooperation between participating countries’ naval forces.”
According to CGTN, naval training includes “strike maritime targets, damage control, and joint search and rescue operations.”
“For two days, the ship’s crew carried out daytime and night fires from large caliber machine guns and small weapons with targets simulated mock enemy unmanned boats and unmanned aerial vehicles,” Russian Interfax news agency reported, citing a statement from the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Iranian reporters said naval groups in Azerbaijan, South Africa, Oman, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Qatar, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Sri Lanka were also observing the training.
China and Russia are not usually patrol waters in the Middle East, but the waterways in this region have become increasingly militarized in recent years.
The Chinese, Iranian and Russian navy have launched joint campaigns near Iran’s Chabahar port.
Under the codename “Security Belt-2025”, exercises include drills on maritime targets, damage control, and joint search and rescue operations. That’s… pic.twitter.com/I’m aiming to strengthen my yqohwhoeor
– cgtn Europe (@cgtneurope) March 11, 2025
In late 2023, Yemeni Houtis began attacking Israel-related ships in the Red Sea.
Houthis paused the attack after a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel began in January, but threatened to resume military operations if Israel did not lift a new siege in Gaza.
The US and other Western countries also increased their presence in the Red Sea, with 10 troops announced in December 2023 to counter the Houthi attack. The US Navy also has a fleet based in Bahrain.
Iran’s nuclear program
This year’s naval training comes when President Donald Trump said he wrote to Iranian leaders trying to revive talks on the nuclear deal several years after he pulled the US out of his previous contract during his first term while Trump was in office.
“There are two ways to deal with Iran: military, or you do the deal,” Trump told Fox Business last week.
Iran’s top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has accused Washington of trying to impose even greater restrictions on Iran than in previous negotiations.
“Some bullying governments are insisting on negotiations,” he said. “However, their negotiations are not intended to resolve the issue, but to control and impose their own expectations.”
“For them, negotiations are a way to introduce new demands. This issue raises new expectations that Iran certainly won’t accept, not just nuclear issues,” Khamenei said.
Trump unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Tehran.
Despite compliance with the nuclear agreement for more than a year after the US withdrawal, Iran gradually reduced its commitment, citing that the remaining signatories of the deal did not protect their interests.
Unlike Israel, which is believed to have around 90 nuclear warheads, Iran is not believed to have developed its own nuclear weapons.
