President Obama said on Monday that the United States had asked Iran to return an American surveillance drone that the Iranians say they captured on Dec. 4. It was Mr. Obama’s first public comment about the drone, a remote-controlled spying aircraft, in a case that has raised American tensions with Iran.

“We have asked for it back — we’ll see how the Iranians respond,” Mr. Obama said of the drone in a short session with reporters at the White House. Mr. Obama appeared with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq, with whom he discussed issues including American concerns about Iran’s influence in the region.

Mr. Obama was answering this question: “And speaking of Iran, are you concerned that it will be able to weaken America’s national security by discovering intelligence from the fallen drone that it captured?”

Mr. Obama did not elaborate on the episode or on Iranian assertions that its forces had captured the drone through a digital attack on the aircraft’s avionics, which they say caused it to land safely inside northern Iran.