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WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump said Wednesday he had told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold off striking Iran, saying it would be "inappropriate" amid talks on a nuclear deal.
"Well, I'd like to be honest, yes I did," Trump said when asked if he had told Netanyahu in a call last week not to take any action that could disrupt Washington's talks with Tehran.
Pressed on what he told the Israeli premier, Trump replied: "I just said I don't think it's appropriate, we're having very good discussions with them."
He added: "I told him this would be inappropriate to do right now because we're very close to a solution.
"I think they want to make a deal, and if we can make a deal, save a lot of lives."
Tehran and Washington have in recent weeks held five rounds of talks focused on the issue -- their highest-level contact since the US in 2018 withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal during Trump's first term.
Iran said earlier Wednesday it may consider allowing US inspectors with the United Nations nuclear watchdog to inspect its facilities if a deal is reached with the United States.
But Israel has repeatedly threatened military action against arch-enemy Iran and US media reports last week said Israel was making preparations to strike Iranian nuclear sites despite the ongoing US-Iran talks.
Iran has long been accused by Western powers of seeking to develop nuclear weapons -- a claim Tehran has consistently denied, insisting its nuclear program is solely for peaceful, civilian purposes.
Tehran and Washington have in recent weeks held five rounds of talks focused on the issue -- their highest-level contact since the US in 2018 withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal during Donald Trump's first term.
"Countries that were hostile to us and behaved unprincipledly over the years, we have always tried not to accept inspectors from those countries," Iran's nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami told reporters, referring to staff from the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA].
Tehran "will reconsider accepting American inspectors through the agency" if "an agreement is reached, and Iran's demands are taken into account", he added.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said Wednesday that "consultations are ongoing regarding the time and location of the next round of talks, and once finalised, they will be announced by Oman".
President Masoud Pezeshkian is currently on an official visit to Oman.
Iranian Foreign Minister and top negotiator Abbas Araghchi, who is accompanying Pezeshkian in Oman, said that "the date for the new round of negotiations will probably be clarified within the next few days".
While welcoming the negotiations, Iranian officials have repeatedly declared uranium enrichment "non-negotiable". US officials, including Washington's representative in the talks, Steve Witkoff, have also publicly identified it as a red line.
Eslami also said that the issue of enrichment "has not been raised at all" and "the enrichment per cent age should not be raised politically".
"Any proposal or initiative that contradicts this principle or undermines this right is unacceptable,” he told reporters.
Iran currently enriches uranium up to 60 per cent, the highest level of any non-nuclear weapons state. That rate is still below the 90 per cent threshold required for a nuclear weapon, but far above the 3.67 per cent limit set under the 2015 deal.