'No, thank you': Trump says he rejected Putin's offer to help with Israel-Iran conflict

US President Donald Trump has claimed that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, offered him help to resolve the conflict between Israel and Iran, which he declined.

Talking to reporters at the Nato Summit in The Hague, Trump said, “As you know, Vladimir called me up. He said, can I help you with Iran? I said, ’no, I don’t need help with Iran. I need help with you.’ And I hope we’re going to be getting a deal done with Russia, which is a shame. Six thousand soldiers died last week.”

The president added that he would like Russia and Ukraine to reach a deal after Moscow launched a fresh summer offensive across the country, despite stronger calls from the West for an unconditional ceasefire.

Earlier this week, Putin told Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in talks in Moscow that aggression against Iran was groundless. Earlier, Russia deeply regretted and condemned the US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.

The US actions had increased the number of participants in the conflict and ushered in a new spiral of escalation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Meanwhile, Trump has insisted that US strikes had resulted in the “total obliteration” of Iran’s nuclear capabilities, setting the country’s programme back by “decades”.

“They’re not going to be building bombs for a long time,” said Trump, who added that the ceasefire since Tuesday was going “very well”.

But US media had earlier cited people familiar with a preliminary US intelligence report as saying that weekend strikes did not fully eliminate Iran’s centrifuges or stockpile of enriched uranium.

The US bombardments sealed off entrances to some facilities without destroying underground buildings, setting Iran’s nuclear programme back by several months, according to the Defence Intelligence Agency report.

With inputs from agencies