US President Barack Obama spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about Iran, Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts and other key issues Monday

US President Barack Obama spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about Iran, Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts and other key issues Monday, the White House said in a short statement.

Netanyahu claimed on Sunday that Iran is capable of converting low-grade uranium to material suitable for use in a weapons program with weeks -- even as Washington pursues diplomatic efforts to ease the nuclear showdown.
  
"The important part stems from technological improvements which allow Iran to enrich uranium from 3.5 percent to 90 percent in a number of weeks," his office quoted him as saying at a cabinet meeting.
Secretary of State John Kerry later forcefully defended diplomacy as the way to try to resolve the dispute, in an apparent riposte to Israel.
  
In a speech Monday night at a disarmament forum, Kerry said the United States has "an opportunity to try to put to test whether or not Iran really desires to pursue only a peaceful program, and will submit to the standards of the international community in the effort to prove that to the world."
  
He added: "I suggest that the idea that the United States of America, as a responsible nation to all of humankind, would not explore that possibility would be the height of irresponsibility."
  
In response to the Israeli demand for more pressure, Kerry said "some have suggested that somehow there's something wrong" with giving diplomacy a chance. "We will not succumb to those fear tactics and forces that suggest otherwise," Kerry said.