US President Donald Trump urged Iran on Wednesday to come to the table and make a deal on nuclear weapons or the next US attack would be far worse, but Tehran said that if that happened, it would fight back as never before, reports Reuters.

"Hopefully Iran will quickly 'Come to the Table' and negotiate a fair and equitable deal - NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS - one that is good for all parties. Time is running out, it is truly of the essence!" Trump wrote in a social media post.

The Reuters Gulf Currents newsletter brings you the latest on geopolitics, energy and finance in the region. Sign up here.

The Republican US president, who pulled out of world powers' 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran during his first White House term, noted that his last warning to Iran was followed by a military strike in June.

"The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again," Trump wrote. He also repeated that a US "armada" was heading toward the Islamic Republic. Iran's mission to the United Nations responded in kind.

"Last time the US blundered into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, it squandered over $7 trillion and lost more than 7,000 American lives," it said in an X post quoting Trump's statement.

"Iran stands ready for dialogue based on mutual respect and interests—BUT IF PUSHED, IT WILL DEFEND ITSELF AND RESPOND LIKE NEVER BEFORE!"

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said he had not been in contact with US special envoy Steve Witkoff in recent days or requested negotiations, state media reported on Wednesday.

Trump said a US naval force headed by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln was approaching Iran. Two US officials told Reuters on Monday that the Lincoln and supporting warships had arrived in the Middle East.

The warships started moving from the Asia-Pacific region last week as US-Iranian tensions soared following a bloody crackdown on protests across Iran by its clerical authorities in recent weeks.

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 the June airstrikes by Israeli and U.S. forces on key nuclear installations.

MSH

At least 34 people, including two babies were killed when a contraband fuel depot exploded into flames in southern Benin near the border with Nigeria on Saturday.

According to Beninese Interior Minister Alassane Seidou, “a serious fire occurred in the town of Seme Podji. Another 20 people were seriously wounded in the incident.”

"I can't really give you the cause of the fire, but there is a large gasoline warehouse here and cars, tricycles and motorcycles come from morning to evening,” he added.

Nigeria is a main oil and gas producer where fuel smuggling is very common along its borders, particularly when the government maintains a subsidy to keep fuel prices low.

The majority of the victims were burnt and they could not be not be identified.

It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using 'Content here, content here', making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for 'lorem ipsum' will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).