US President Donald Trump’s unexpected claim this week that talks with Iran were yielding great progress came at a time of increased strikes and further threats of escalation across the region, with Washington’s goals in the war still not fully clear.
A chorus of Iranian leadership figures have so far denied any negotiations were taking place, pledging to fight “until complete victory.” Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey and Gulf nations are reportedly trying behind the scenes to organise talks, but their efforts still seem preliminary.
If anything, the war appears to be escalating. Iran fired its daily barrages again across the Middle East on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Meanwhile, thousands more US Marines were en route to the Gulf, and the US Army was preparing to deploy at least 1,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East in the coming days.
Here is what we know and do not know about the talks that could bring a break in the bombardment or a complete end to hostilities.
Who is negotiating with whom?
Since the beginning of the Iran war on 28 February, Trump has named shifting and sometimes vague objectives for the ongoing US campaign.
He has talked of degrading or destroying Iran’s missile capabilities and its ability to threaten neighbours, goals that he has some flexibility in declaring accomplished.
A much tougher goal is ensuring Iran can never build a nuclear weapon, and Trump has insisted that will be part of any deal.
A reopening of the Strait of Hormuz — a vital waterway for oil shipments that Iran made virtually impassable when the war began — is now also a priority, for Trump and the global economy.
As Trump talks of engaging with leaders in Iran, he has backed off from promoting the Islamic Republic’s collapse. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, continues to say the war aims to help Iranians overthrow the regime.
Trump claimed that US envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner held talks Sunday with an Iranian leader he described as “the man who I believe is the most respected and the leader” and was “very reasonable.”
Trump clarified he was not referring to the country’s injured Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen since the beginning of the war.
Axios, citing an unnamed Israeli official, identified the mystery interlocutor as Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s powerful speaker of parliament and one of the most prominent non-clerical figures in Tehran.
But Ghalibaf stated that “no negotiations” were under way 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, 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.
Who is helping organise the talks?
The US agreed “in principle” to join talks in Pakistan, according to three Pakistani officials, one Egyptian official and a Gulf diplomat, while mediators were still working to convince Iran.
The officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to provide the details to the media.
The Egyptian official said efforts are centred on “trust-building” between the US and Iran, aiming to reach a pause in fighting and a “mechanism” to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
A 15-point plan from the Trump administration has been delivered to Iran by intermediaries from Pakistan, who have offered to host renewed negotiations, according to multiple reports citing anonymous sources.
But with the US taking steps to send additional soldiers and Marines to the Middle East, the move is being framed as Trump manoeuvring to give himself flexibility on what he will do next, with some insiders claiming that taking control of Iran’s Kharg island, which sees 90% of Tehran’s oil shipped from there, is on the cards.
The White House did not respond to requests for comment regarding the administration’s submission of the 15-point plan.
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”.
Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty called Araghchi and Witkoff earlier this week.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Monday he spoke with Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, while army chief Asim Munir liaised with Trump on Sunday, according to the Financial Times.
Qatar, a key diplomatic actor in the region, has ruled out playing a role on Tuesday.
Who is in charge in Tehran?
Iran’s military engagement appears to have remained relatively cohesive, despite weeks of heavy bombardment and the killing of its ayatollah and many top-ranking military figures.
But who is actually in charge is not known. The new Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen or directly heard from since he was named to replace his father Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the initial US-Israeli strikes on Tehran on 28 February.
Within the Islamic Republic are other centres of power, including the army and the powerful Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) responsible only to the ayatollah, as well as political figures like Ghalibaf, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and President Masoud Pezeshkian.
It is not certain that anyone entering talks with the US would have backing from the IRGC, which remains crucial to holding power in Tehran.
In the ongoing war, Iran’s military has conducted strikes based on orders of local commanders, rather than from any political leadership, amid reports that plans of autonomous regional commands were made ahead of time in case of a decapitation event.
The spokesman of Iran’s top military command, Major General Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi, vowed on Tuesday that the fighting “will continue until complete victory.”
It was a message of defiance to Trump’s claim that Iran was petitioning for peace, a message of strength for inside and outside Iran, but possibly also a warning to anyone within the Iranian leadership not to back down in talks.
Trump acknowledged that many potential interlocutors, including negotiators involved in talks before the war, have since been killed in strikes.
“Most of those people are gone. Some of the people we were dealing with are gone, because that was a big — that was a big hit,” he told The Atlantic on 1 March.
Asked Tuesday which Iranians the US is negotiating with now, Trump said: “We killed all their leadership. And then they met to choose new leaders and we killed all of them. And now we have a new group, and we can easily do that, but let’s see how they turn out.”
“We have really regime change,” he said. “This is a change in the regime because the leaders are all very different than the ones that we started off with that created all those problems.”
Was Trump just trying to buy time?
Trump’s sudden declaration of progress in talks on Monday came just as the deadline was about to run out on an ultimatum he had made over the weekend, stating the US would “obliterate” Iran’s power plants unless the country releases its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz.
Tehran threatened to retaliate against power, water and oil infrastructure across the Gulf. that would cripple life for millions in the region.
Trump on Monday pushed the deadline back five days and said there’s a “very good chance” a deal could be reached this week, in what turned out to be a relief to global oil and stock markets.
Trump’s move could signal he is wary of the war’s possible long-term damage to the domestic and global economy, although his administration has insisted that any pain from spiking oil prices will quickly be reversed once the war is over.
“Trump could be actively seeking an offramp,” the Soufan Center, a New York-based think tank, wrote in an analysis.
On the other hand, the Soufan Center noted, Trump could be buying time for thousands of US Marines heading to the region to arrive.
The Marine deployment could be a tactic to pressure Iran on negotiations. But it has also raised speculation that the US may try to seize the island of Kharg or other key southern locations, or carry out an operation to remove enriched uranium from inside Iran. Either would mean a greater escalation and a longer war.
Trump has said he has no plans to send ground forces into Iran but has not ruled it out. Israel has suggested that ground forces could participate in the war.
What is on the negotiating table?
Nuclear negotiations were already taking place when the US and Israel launched their surprise strikes on 28 February, immediately after Oman-led negotiators stated they believed a breakthrough in the talks was imminent.
This resulted in Tehran’s deepened mistrust in dialogue with the US, which was initally sparked by Washington’s unilateral withdrawal in 2018 from a landmark nuclear agreement reached with the United States three years earlier.
Iran and the US held negotiations in early 2025, and when a two-month deadline set by Trump ran out, Israel hit Iran in an attack that the US joined during the 12-day conflict in June, striking Iranian nuclear facilities and military positions.
Trump said Monday that any deal to end the war would entail the US removing Tehran’s enriched uranium.
“We want no enrichment, but we also want the enriched uranium,” he said, referring to Iran’s known 440-kilogram stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% — close to the 90% needed to make a bomb.
Iran refused that demand in the past, insisting it has the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes.
However, prior reports from Iran indicate that the Tehran regime was actively seeking ways to enrich uranium to weapons-grade, and has not allowed international nuclear watchdogs to inspect its facilities following the June 2025 conflict.
In the last round of talks before the war began on 28 February, Tehran reportedly offered to retrieve the stockpile from under its bombed nuclear facilities and blend it down to lower levels, according to Araghchi.
A less ambitious goal for talks could be to reach a ceasefire and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Foreign Minister Araghchi seemed to reject any partial deal in an interview with Al Jazeera last Wednesday.
“We don’t believe in ceasefire. We believe in the end of war … the end of war in all fronts,” Araghchi said.
Iran is now likely to seek guarantees of non-aggression in the future, financial compensation for the bombing, and a complete lifting of sanctions.
What about Israel?
Notably, Israel is not involved in the move for negotiations.
However, Israel would follow Trump’s lead, as it seems unlikely to continue with its strikes on Iran if the US declared an end to the war.
In a statement late Monday, Netanyahu acknowledged Trump’s diplomatic efforts but said Israel would continue to strike its enemies for the time being.
Also, an end to the Iran war does not mean an end to Israel’s bombing campaign in Lebanon, where Israel has seized a new opportunity to try to crush the Tehran-backed Hezbollah after the militants fired rockets in support of Iran.