President Donald Trump vetoed an Israeli plan in recent days to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, two US officials told Reuters on Sunday.
“Have the Iranians killed an American yet? No. Until they do we’re not even talking about going after the political leadership,” said one of the sources, a senior US administration official.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said top US officials have been in constant communications with Israeli officials in the days since Israel launched a massive attack on Iran in a bid to halt its nuclear programme.
They said the Israelis reported that they had an opportunity to kill the top Iranian leader, but Trump waved them off the plan.
The officials would not say whether Trump himself delivered the message. But Trump has been in frequent communications with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
When asked about Reuters report, Netanyahu, in an interview on Sunday with Fox News Channel’s “Special Report With Bret Baier,” said: “There’s so many false reports of conversations that never happened, and I’m not going to get into that.”
“But I can tell you, I think that we do what we need to do, we’ll do what we need to do. And I think the United States knows what is good for the United States,” Netanyahu said.
Trump has been holding out hope for a resumption of US-Iranian negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear programme. Talks that had been scheduled for Sunday in Oman were cancelled as a result of the strikes.
Trump told Reuters on Friday that “we knew everything” about the Israeli strikes.
Earlier today, despite evidence that the conflict between Israel and Iran is escalating, the US president expressed optimism that peace would come soon and cited the possibility that Russia’s Vladimir Putin could help.
In a social media post, Trump said there were many unspecified meetings about the issue happening and encouraged the two countries to make a deal.
And in an interview with ABC News, he said he was open to Putin, whose forces invaded Ukraine and who has resisted Trump’s attempts to broker a ceasefire with Kyiv, serving as a mediator.
Israel and Iran launched fresh attacks on each other overnight into Sunday, killing scores.
“Iran and Israel should make a deal, and will make a deal,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social site. “We will have PEACE, soon, between Israel and Iran! Many calls and meetings now taking place.”
Trump did not offer any details about the meetings or evidence of progress toward peace. His assertion contradicted comments by PM Netanyahu, who said on Saturday that Israel’s campaign against Iran would intensify.
A White House spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on how Trump and the White House were working to de-escalate the situation in the Middle East.
