March 4 (Reuters) - A Pakistani man accused of planning to kill President Donald Trump told jurors on Wednesday that he did not willingly work with Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps to devise the plot, media said.

The Justice Department accused Asif Merchant of trying to recruit people in the United States in the plan targeting Trump and other U.S. politicians in retaliation for Washington's killing of the Corps' top commander, Qassem Soleimani.

By Ismail Shakil

March 4 (Reuters) - The impact of the Iran conflict on energy markets will be temporary and a "small price" to pay for U.S. military goals, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Fox News on Wednesday.

U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran and the subsequent response by Tehran have widened regional tensions and paralyzed shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting vital Middle East oil and gas flows and sending energy prices higher. Oil prices rose on Thursday in Asia amid growing concern over the prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz. [O/R]

LOS ANGELES, March 4 (Reuters) - The Pentagon on Wednesday identified two more soldiers who were killed in the war against Iran.

The two Army Reserve soldiers died on Sunday in a drone attack on a U.S. military facility in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait that also killed four other reservists.

The Pentagon said Major Jeffrey O'Brien, 45, of Iowa, was killed in the attack and announced the "believed death" of Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert M. Marzan, 54, of Sacramento, California. Positive identification of Marzan will be completed by the medical examiner, the Pentagon said.

Cancelled flights, postponed trips and a great deal of uncertainty: the war in the Middle East is casting a long shadow over the tourism outlook for a region that has become a prized destination for travellers worldwide.

"My last group of tourists left three days ago, and all the other groups planned for March have been cancelled," said Nazih Rawashdeh, a tour guide near Irbid, in northern Jordan.

"This is the start of the high season here. It's catastrophic," he told AFP.

"And yet there's no problem in Jordan. It's perfectly safe."

By Ryan Patrick Jones

March 4 (Reuters) - The Canadian government is working to repatriate citizens who are stranded in the Middle East by organizing seats on commercial flights, contracting charter flights and offering ground transportation options to neighboring countries, Canada's foreign affairs minister said on Wednesday.

Seeking to bring down Iran's Islamic republic, the United States and Israel could see a path by exploiting ethnic tensions, a strategy attractive to military planners but fraught with long-term risks.

Just over half of Iran's population is Persian, but the country of 90 million has seen less strife along ethnic lines than many of its neighbors, despite plenty of discontent against the clerical Shia government that cracked down ruthlessly on protests weeks ago.

March 4 (Reuters) - An Iranian official said the country had not sent any messages to the United States, in response to an Axios report, Iran's Tasnim news agency said early on Thursday.

"No message has been sent from Iran to the US, nor will any response be given to US messages. Iran's armed forces have prepared themselves for a long war," the official, who was not named, was quoted as saying by Tasnim.

SYDNEY, March 5 (Reuters) - Australia said three more commercial flights were scheduled to depart the United Arab Emirates on Thursday as the first group of Australians stranded in the Middle East returned home overnight following the outbreak of the Iran conflict.

Commercial air traffic remained largely absent across much of the region, with major Gulf hubs - including Dubai, the world's busiest airport for international passengers - largely shut for a fifth straight day, in the biggest travel disruption since the COVID-19 pandemic.

WASHINGTON, March 4 (Reuters) - A majority of the U.S. Senate on Wednesday backed President Donald Trump's military campaign against Iran, voting to block a bipartisan resolution aiming to stop the air war and require that any hostilities against Iran be authorized by Congress.

As voting continued, the tally in the 100-member chamber was 52-47 not to advance the war powers resolution.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Noland D. McCaskill; editing by Mark Porter)

March 4 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he discussed the Middle East conflict on Wednesday with the king of Bahrain and the crown prince of Kuwait.

Zelenskiy also said that his administration was in daily contact with the U.S. and once the security situation around Iran permitted it, trilateral talks with Moscow and Washington on a settlement of the war with Moscow would resume.

In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy added: