Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and United States President Donald Trump held a 40-minute phone call on Monday evening, shortly after Iran announced that it would soon respond to Washington’s latest proposal for a nuclear deal.

Following the call, Netanyahu held a high-level security consultation focused on Iran.

In a sparse readout of the conversation, the Prime Minister’s Office said the two leaders discussed Washington’s ongoing nuclear talks with Tehran.

“President Trump told the Prime Minister that the United States has presented a reasonable proposal to Iran and is expected to receive its response in the coming days,” said the statement from Netanyahu’s office.

It added that Trump informed Netanyahu “that he plans to hold another round of talks with Iran over the weekend.”

The statement did not provide any details about what Netanyahu said during the call.

For his part, Trump told reporters at the White House that the conversation went “very well” and covered a variety of issues, including the ongoing nuclear talks, adding that US has a meeting with Iran on Thursday.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei later said the “next round of Iran–US indirect negotiations was being planned for next Sunday in Muscat,” according to a statement cited by Reuters.

Netanyahu stopped testifying earlier than scheduled in his corruption trial to hold the call with Trump, which came as Jerusalem and Washington wait for Hamas’s answer to a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal, and as his ultra-Orthodox coalition partners are threatening to topple the government if a Haredi enlistment exemption bill is not passed.

Netanyahu’s meeting after speaking with Trump included senior security officials, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Defense Minister Israel Katz, Shas leader Aryeh Deri and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, according to Hebrew media.

Channel 13 later reported that Netanyahu instructed Dermer and Mossad chief David Barnea to meet US special envoy Steve Witkoff before the next round of US-Iran nuclear talks.

At the White House, Trump told reporters that the US “is trying to make a deal [with Iran] so that there’s no destruction and death,” adding that the Iranians are “tough negotiators.”

Asked what’s blocking a deal, Trump said, “They’re just asking for things that you can’t do,” pointing to Tehran’s insistence on retaining its uranium-enrichment capability—something Trump said he won’t permit, even though the latest US proposal reportedly allows limited, low-level enrichment inside Iran for a time. “They don’t want to give up what they have to give up. You know what that is: They seek enrichment.”

“They have given us their thoughts on the deal, and I said it’s just not acceptable,” he added, without specifying whether Iran has submitted its response to the US nuclear deal proposal.

On Friday, Trump asserted that Iran would not be permitted to enrich uranium as part of an agreement. “They won’t be enriching. If they enrich, then we’re going to have to do it the other way,” he said, hinting at a military option if a deal does not pan out, while reiterating that he prefers a diplomatic solution.

Asked about the stalled hostage talks between Israel and Hamas, Trump said on Monday they were continuing “and Iran actually is involved,” without elaborating as to what he meant. Iran, a chief sponsor of Hamas and other anti-Israel terror groups in the region, to date has not been known to be a party to the talks.

“We’ll see what’s going to happen with Gaza. We want to get the hostages back,” Trump added.

The call with Trump came as Netanyahu has been meeting in recent days with Haredi members of his ruling coalition and other senior coalition figures, linking the current “opportunities and challenges” in Israel’s security situation with the intense political turmoil he faces, Channel 12 reported Monday evening.

“We are in a dramatic period. There are extraordinary challenges on the table. This is a historic window of opportunity that will not return, and therefore, under no circumstances should the foundations of the government be shaken,” the network quoted the premier as telling some of the Knesset members during the meetings.

The report added that opposition figures are aware of the conversations, saying Opposition Leader Yair Lapid learned about them from MKs he met with to discuss the draft exemption law, and that other lawmakers reported hearing similar messages. The Prime Minister’s Office declined to comment on the report, the network said.

Channel 13 separately reported that US Ambassador Mike Huckabee has been meeting Haredi politicians in an effort to calm the coalition crisis, stressing that “government stability is important for addressing the Iranian issue.”

Netanyahu’s circle is aware of the effort, and Huckabee’s office said only that he is meeting “various figures” and that “the content of those conversations remains private,” the report said.

“Since I have no doubt that Ambassador Huckabee respects Israel’s independence and its democracy, I hope and believe that the report that he is interfering in Israel’s internal politics and trying to help Netanyahu [deal with] the ultra-Orthodox in the military draft law crisis are not true. Israel is not a protectorate,” Lapid tweeted in response to the TV report.

Netanyahu has called for Iran’s enrichment capabilities and nuclear facilities to be fully dismantled, but assured the White House that Israel won’t launch an attack on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear sites unless Trump signals that the ongoing negotiations with Tehran have failed, Axios reported last week, citing two Israeli officials familiar with the matter.

In a reportedly stormy phone call between the two leaders late last month, Trump told Netanyahu not to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities due to fear that it would blow up Washington’s ongoing talks with Tehran.

In an interview aired by i24News Monday evening, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, said that Iran has told him that Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities may cause it to pursue nuclear weapons or abandon the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Grossi said that such a strike by Israel “might have an amalgamating effect which would make a determination in the part of Iran to go to a nuclear weapon or to abandon the treaty on non-proliferation. I’m telling you this because they have told me.”

The IAEA chief commented on the challenges he believes Israel would face in striking the Islamic Republic’s nuclear sites: “Certainly this program runs wide and deep. And when I say deep, I know what I’m saying. So many of these facilities are extremely well protected. This would require a very, very devastating force to affect it.”

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.