AFP looks at the facts, the speculation and what might happen now:

- Are there talks happening? -

Yes, according to Trump, no according to Tehran, but it might depend on what is meant by "talks".

Trump claimed on Monday that the US had been engaging with an unnamed Iranian leader whom he described as "the man who I believe is the most respected and the leader" and was "very reasonable."

He clarified that the individual was not the country's supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, said by state media to have been injured in an airstrike.

The Axios news site, citing an unnamed Israeli official, identified the mystery interlocutor as Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran's powerful speaker of parliament who is one of the most prominent non-clerical figures in Tehran.

But Ghalibaf stated that "no negotiations" were underway in a post on X, adding that the announcement was "fake news" intended "to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped."

The New York Times, citing unnamed officials, also said there had been "direct communication" between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff "in recent days" -- although neither side has confirmed this.

But that doesn't mean other "talks" aren't happening.

- What about indirect talks? -

Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei confirmed that messages had been received over the weekend from "some friendly countries indicating a US request for negotiations aimed at ending the war".

Trump's administration has held two sets of multi-round talks with Iran since the US leader returned to the White House in January 2025, with both ending in surprise attacks on the Islamic republic -- in June last year and most recently on February 28.

All of these negotiations were indirect -- with Gulf state Oman playing the role of mediator, shuttling messages between the two sides which have had no formal diplomatic relations since 1980.

Oman has been burnt by its experiences, but other countries with friendly relations with Tehran and Washington appear to have stepped in as backchannels for the two sides, principally Egypt, Pakistan and possibly Turkey.

Egypt's Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty called his Iranian counterpart Araghchi and Trump's envoy Witkoff on Sunday and Monday.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, whose country represents Iranian diplomatic interests in Washington, said on Tuesday that Islamabad was prepared to host negotiations "subject to concurrence by the US and Iran".

Ross Harrison, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and author of "Decoding Iran's Foreign Policy", was highly sceptical of Trump's claim to be speaking to a "top person" in Iran.

"I don't think they are talking to anybody. I think it's through mediation somehow," he told AFP.

- What would negotiations cover? -

Principally, Iran's nuclear programme, which has been the subject of talks and friction since 2003 and a main driver of the international sanctions on Tehran.

"We want no enrichment, but we also want the enriched uranium," Trump said Monday, referring to Iran's known 440-kilogram stockpile of uranium which is enriched to 60 percent -- close to the 90 percent needed to make a bomb.

In the last round of talks before the US-Israeli attacks on February 28, Tehran offered to retrieve the stockpile from under its bombed nuclear facilities and blend it down to lower levels, according to Iranian foreign minister Araghchi.

Tehran, which has always denied wanting to build a nuclear weapon, had also offered to allow the UN's IAEA nuclear agency inspectors to return, reports say.

Trump said on Monday that there were already "major points of agreement" with Iranian negotiators.

But having been attacked twice, Iran is now likely to seek guarantees of non-aggression in the future, financial compensation for the bombing and a lifting of sanctions.

Iran's hold over the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil and gas shipping route which has been effectively closed, gives it leverage it did not hold in previous rounds of talks.

"I'm very sceptical (about the talks) because trust has been completely destroyed and the positions of the warring parties are further apart than ever," David Khalfa, a Middle East specialist at the Jean-Jaures Foundation, a Paris-based think-tank, told AFP.

"The margin for manoeuvre on both sides is very limited," he added.

There is also another possible reading of the whole sequence: Trump is buying time again before sending in US ground troops to try to open up the Strait of Hormuz or seize Iranian oil assets.

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