Obama to meet Israel's Peres on Sunday

US President Barack Obama will meet Sunday with his Israeli counterpart Shimon Peres on the eve of talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set to focus on Iran, a US official said.

"They'll meet briefly backstage at AIPAC," the senior administration official said Friday, asking to remain anonymous, referring to a meeting of the powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington.

Obama is due to address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on its opening day Sunday, before meeting Netanyahu at the White House on Monday.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Peres, 88, told the New York Times Thursday the United States must make it clear to Iran that "all options are on the table."

"We need a total and clear commitment that the catastrophe of Iran will not create an impossible situation," Peres said.

But he acknowledged there was disagreement over where to draw the red line that would spark military action to curb Iran's suspect nuclear program.

Obama warned on Friday against a premature strike on Iraq, but in an apparent nod to Israel said if sanctions failed to curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions, US military action against Iranian nuclear facilities should not be ruled out.

"I think that the Israeli government recognizes that, as president of the United States, I don't bluff," Obama told the Atlantic Monthly magazine in remarks published Friday.

"I also don't, as a matter of sound policy, go around advertising exactly what our intentions are. But I think both the Iranian and the Israeli governments recognize that when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say."