U.S. President Donald Trump, amid ongoing large-scale strikes against Iran, said that Iran’s leadership is seeking to reach an agreement with Washington.

“They very much want to make a deal. I told them they should have done it a week ago,” Trump said, according to The Telegraph.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine said the United States does not rule out further military casualties as a result of operations against Iran, RIA Novosti reported.

“We expect to have additional casualties, and, as always, we will work to minimize them,” he said.

Earlier, Trump announced that the United States had launched a large-scale operation against Iran, stressing that Washington will not allow Tehran to obtain nuclear weapons and that this remains unchanged U.S. policy.

Israel, for its part, carried out a preemptive strike on Iran “to neutralize the threat,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said, declaring a state of emergency across the country. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has launched retaliatory strikes against U.S. military facilities in the Middle East.