The Biden administration and National Security Council say they closely monitored multiple days of rare joint naval drills between China, Russia, and Iran held in the Gulf of Oman.
The "Security Bond-2023" exercises took place from Wednesday through Saturday, and were focused on deepening "practical cooperation between the participating countries’ navies ... and inject positive energy into regional peace and stability," according to China's Defense Ministry. The allies confirmed the exercises concluded Saturday and hailed their 'success'.
Iranian state as well as Russian media published and circulated footage of the drills, which involved joint warship maneuvers, deployment of aircraft, and day and night artillery firing.
NSC spokesman John Kirby indicated in Friday press remarks that the US isn't particularly concerned about these drills. "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," he told CNN, conceding that, "But nations train. We do it all the time. We’ll watch it as best we can."
According to The Wall Street Journal, "Still, the exercise is significantly smaller than those anchored by the U.S. military, which is winding up an 18-day naval exercise in the Middle East involving 42 other nations, including Israel, Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E."
While it's not the first time the Russians and Chinese have trained together in or near the Persian Gulf region, it's another sign of deepening cooperation after they declared their 'no limits partnership' in February 2022.
The timing of the drills also came days before Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to arrive in Moscow to meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to discuss the war in Ukraine, and possible paths toward peace negotiations.
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