Washington DC - President Donald Trump said that negotiations with Iran will begin Monday after he decided to hold off on new strikes against the Islamic Republic to pursue a deal.

Aboard Air Force One on Sunday, Trump told reporters, "Obviously, they don't want to be attacked. They knew the extent of the attack because they saw it forming. ... Now what we're doing is we're talking to them in the form of a negotiation. It begins tomorrow afternoon."

Trump did not provide further details of the venue of the talks or the participants. On Saturday, the president pulled back from threats for a massive attack against Iran, which he said would have been the biggest since World War II, saying the "perimeter" of a deal was there.

Trump said that he was asked by Iran and Saudi Arabia, along with the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, to hold off on the strikes: "When the allies asked to call it off, you've got to sort of say 'Well, let's see.' And the reason they ask is they think there's a deal. ... There's a deal on Hormuz, and then there will be a deal on the nuclear, or you might call it the denuclearization of Iran."

JD Vance JD Vance receives a flood of MAGA tributes on 42nd birthday: "A FIGHTER of a Vice President!"

He reiterated that the scale of the planned strikes would have been "the biggest attack since World War II."

"It would take many, many years to ever build it back if it could — I don't think it would even be buildable," Trump asserted.

The war began on February 28 when the US and Israel launched surprise strikes against Iran, though months of on-off diplomacy have led to periods of relative calm.