India, March 23 -- After US President Donald Trump claimed to have held two days of talks with Iran, which he described as "productive", his former counter-terror adviser Joseph 'Joe' Kent said the war would end only if US ally Israel is retrained first.

"Step 1 in deescalation must be restraining the Israelis, otherwise all efforts to negotiate will follow this pattern: POTUS publicly announces deescalation. Israel takes major strikes to destroy the negotiations & in turn weaken our ability to negotiate. The war accelerates," Joe Kent wrote on X.

Israel has not immediately reacted to Trump's claims, while Iran has denied any such talks were being held.

Trump, however, doubled down on his claim after he announced that, owing to the "ta...