Trump says he hopes to avoid war with Iran

US President Donald Trump has said he does not want a war with Iran amid rising tensions between the two countries, according to senior officials.

As he stood outside the West Wing waiting to meet Swiss president Ueli Maurer on Thursday, Trump was asked by a reporter whether the US was going to war with Iran. He replied: “I hope not.” The president’s retort followed growing speculation that he was less supportive of engaging Iran than his advisers.

Although the US and Iran do not have a formal diplomatic relationship, Switzerland serves as a “protecting power” for the US in the country, meaning it represents the US in Tehran.

Maurer told reporters on Thursday that Iran had taken up less of his conversation with Trump than expected. “Iran has not been that big of an issue, the discussion has not been majorly about Iran,” he said.

Earlier, US lawmakers demanded to see intelligence on the increased threat the Trump administration says Iran poses to American interests as questions grew about the evidence on which Washington’s claims are based.

John Bolton, the US national security adviser who has in the past called for regime change in Iran, announced last week that the US was deploying an aircraft carrier strike group, bombers and other military assets to the Middle East as he talked up the threat he said Iran posed. He said the US would respond to any attack with “unrelenting force”.

But Trump this week dismissed a report that defence officials are revising a plan that envisaged the US deploying up to 120,000 troops to the Middle East if Iran attacked American forces.

The latest frictions come after Iran suspended its commitments under the 2015 international nuclear deal, and threatened to resume production of enriched uranium.

The accord aimed to cut sanctions on Iran in exchange for an end to its nuclear programme, but the US unilaterally withdrew from the agreement last year and imposed new sanctions.