The club have reportedly launched a move for the Croatian who has fallen out of favour in Italy.
Perisic starred at this summer’s World Cup and scored the equaliser against England in the semi-final before firing a stunner against France in the final.
Unai Emery has been restricted to just loan signings this window and the winger would be a welcome addition to his squad for the second half of the campaign.
BBC Sport’s David Ornstein broke the news on Arsenal’s approach for Perisic.
He tweeted: “Arsenal have made an approach to sign Inter Milan winger Ivan Perisic.
#AFC want loan with £35m option to buy. 29yo open to #Inter exit.
“Fits plan of versatile midfielder e.g. Suarez (still possible) / Nkunku + winger. Unclear if injuries mean defender wanted but Sokratis not bad.”
The 29-year-old had been continuously linked to Manchester United under Jose Mourinho, but they are no longer believed to be interested.
Arsenal fans took to Twitter to react to the news and many pleaded the club to use under-fire Ozil in a potential swap deal.
One tweeted: “Wouldn’t mind a Perisic-Ozil swap at all.”
Another said: “Swap Ozil for Perisic if we have to need a winger desperately.”
“Swap him with Ozil! That way we don’t have to pay £35m come summer. Wage will also be lower for Perisic,” a third tweeted.
Arsenal appeared to make a mistake in offering Ozil a new contract worth £350,000-a-week.
Now the Gunners will struggle to offload the German with not many clubs able to afford those kind of wages.
Another fan tweeted: “I think arsenal will try to send Ozil on loan to Inter And get Perisic as a part of the deal that’s the smartest business that arsenal board can do in this transfer window , coz to pay 35M for 30yo plus a big wage is a big gamble.
One supporter appeared to be put off by the potential deal: “We don’t need Perisic, we need a CB right now. We can’t afford to be signing players that are 29. Auba and Ozil are both 30, if we sign Perisic as well we’ll be left with ANOTHER massive rebuild job soon and players that have no resell value to fund that.”
A move to sign Emery’s former player Denis Suarez appears to have gone quiet.