Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked US President Donald Trump to delay any plans for an American military strike against Iran, according to a report published Thursday by the New York Times, citing a senior US official.
Netanyahu spoke with Trump on Wednesday, the same day the president said he had received information from "very important sources on the other side" indicating that Iran had stopped killing protesters and did not intend to proceed with plans for mass executions. The developments were seen as a sign that Trump was pulling back from carrying out a strike on Iran, an option he had been weighing in recent days.
Trump has sent similarly ambiguous signals in the past. In June, he made comparable statements even after a decision had already been taken to order a strike on Iran. A senior US official said Wednesday that the president had not entirely ruled out the military options presented to him by his commanders in recent days, and that the decision on whether to strike depended on the next steps taken by Iran's security apparatus in response to the mass protests.
At the same time, an official from a Gulf state said that Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Egypt, all partners of Washington, had also urged the Trump administration not to attack Iran. According to the official, senior figures from those countries held talks with US counterparts over the past two days and warned that an American strike "could lead to a much broader regional conflict."
The Arab states also conveyed messages to Tehran, telling Iranian officials to refrain from attacking countries in the region if the US ultimately decided to carry out a strike. The four countries coordinated their messaging with both Washington and Tehran, the official said. Two diplomats in the region confirmed that several Arab states had pressured the Trump administration to avoid an attack.
The White House declined to comment on the report, as did the Prime Minister's Office. Iran, which closed its airspace to commercial flights on Wednesday evening, has since reopened it.
