NEW YORK, March 26. /TASS/. US President Donald Trump has told his aides that he wants to end the conflict with Iran in the coming weeks, The Wall Street Journal reported.

According to the newspaper, in private conversations, Trump told "associates in recent days that he wants to avoid a protracted war in Iran" and that "he thinks the conflict is in its final stages, urging them to stick to the four-to-six-week timeline he has outlined publicly." Apart from that, the US leader told his team that the conflict with Iran diverts him from other priorities, The Wall Street Journal noted, adding that some of his closest advisers want him to focus on the most pressing problems American voters are concerned over, such as price hikes provoked by the conflict.

White House planned Trump’s visit to China in mid-May "with the expectation that the war would be concluded before the meeting begins, some of the people the newspaper noted.

The United States and Israel launched a military operation against Iran on February 28. Major Iranian cities, including Tehran, were struck. The White House justified the attack by citing alleged missile and nuclear threats from Iran. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced a retaliatory operation, targeting sites in Israel. US military bases in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were also hit. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and some other key Iranian leaders were killed in the joint US-Israeli attack.