A major US arms deal with Israel sends Iran a "very clear signal" that military action remains an option to stop it from going nuclear, US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Sunday. Hagel's comments came shortly before his arrival in the Jewish state at the start of a six-day regional trip likely to be dominated by worries over Iran's nuclear programme and Syria's civil war.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday defended his country's controversial nuclear programme while on a tour of west Africa, calling it peaceful and arguing that Tehran has no use for an atomic bomb. Speaking during a visit to Benin, the first stop on a three-nation tour, Ahmadinejad called nuclear energy a "divine gift" providing affordable electricity. "They accuse Iran, like all nations that seek to rapidly find their way out of the current domination," the Iranian leader said through an interpreter in a speech at a Benin university.

Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute, Washington DC, Alex Vatanka who is also a lecturer at the US Air Force Special Operations School at Hurlburt Field has said that the strained relationship between the US and Islamic Republic of Iran is likely to continue in the foreseeable future.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi and his German counterpart Guido Westerwelle discussed the latest developments concerning Iran's nuclear program over phone on Thursday, APA reports quoting official IRNA news agency. During the telephone conversation, the two sides expressed the hope that the upcoming talks between Iran and the P5+1 group ( Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany) in Kazakh city of Almaty would bear fruitful results. The German foreign minister said that he expects the exchange of views between the two countries would continue.