French court orders ex-bishop to pay over 1970s child sex abuse

US President Donald Trump said Thursday that the Iran war was "extremely" ahead of schedule, as he pushed Tehran to make a deal at his first cabinet meeting since the conflict began nearly a month ago.

As Tehran publicly rebuffed negotiations, Trump again cited the original timeframe of four to six weeks that he gave early on in the joint US-Israeli military offensive.

"They're lousy fighters, but they're great negotiators, and they are begging to work out a deal," Trump said at the White House alongside top officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth.

"We estimated it would take approximately four to six weeks to achieve our mission. Twenty-six days in we're extremely, really, a lot ahead of schedule," added Trump.

"The Iranian regime is now admitting to itself that they have been decisively defeated."

Trump has been saying for days that Iran wants to make a deal, amid growing signs he is seeking a quick end to the conflict. Iran, however, says there are no direct negotiations. 

The US leader also launched a fresh attack on NATO allies after they rejected his appeals to send naval assets to secure the Strait of Hormuz, the oil chokepoint Iran has effectively closed in response to the US-Israeli attacks.

"I'll say it publicly. We're very disappointed with NATO, because NATO has done absolutely nothing," Trump said.

He particularly lambasted Britain, saying it had offered to send aircraft carriers too late and describing the UK ships as "toys" compared to their US equivalents.

- 'Inflection point' -

During the meeting, roving US envoy Steve Witkoff confirmed for the first time from the US side that Washington had sent a 15-point "action list" to Iran via mediator Pakistan.

Businessman Witkoff, who led failed negotiations with Iran in the weeks before the US-Israeli strikes began, said there were indications Tehran was ready to make a deal.

"We will see where things lead, and if we can convince Iran that this is the inflection point with no good alternatives for them, other than more death and destruction," Witkoff said.

"We have strong signs that this is a possibility."

In his usual style for his lengthy cabinet meetings, Trump let officials around the table have their say. 

Vice President JD Vance, previously a staunch anti-interventionist who was widely reported to be against the Iran operation, said Trump was ensuring that Iran "didn't get a nuclear weapon."

Noting that Easter is approaching, Catholic convert Vance said US forces were "fighting at a time... that celebrates the return of Jesus Christ to Jerusalem."

Top US diplomat Rubio appeared to quote rappers Public Enemy as he praised Pentagon chief Hegseth, saying that "every day, the Department of War lets the drummer get wicked over every portion of Iran."

Hegseth launched an attack on the media for failing to support Trump's war, before hailing for "doing the work of the free world."

"We pray for a deal, and we welcome a deal," Hegseth said. "But in the meantime... the Department of War will continue negotiating with bombs."

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Here are facts and figures about the Bab al-Mandeb strait, a crucial passage into the Red Sea that Iran has threatened to target if US forces launch a ground assault on its territory.

- Gateway to Red Sea -

Known as the "Gate of Tears" in Arabic, the Strait of Bab al-Mandeb is a narrow waterway at the southern tip of the Red Sea, connecting it with the Gulf of Aden in the Indian Ocean.

About 100 kilometres (62 miles) long and 30 kilometres (18 miles) wide, it separates Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula from Djibouti and Eritrea on the Horn of Africa.

- Strategic trade route -

With the Red Sea acting as a key link between Europe and Asia, the strait is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.

Oil tankers and cargo ships arriving from the Indian Ocean pass through it to reach the Red Sea and then the Suez Canal, where they enter the Mediterranean, and vice versa.

Around 26,000 ships transited through the Suez Canal in 2023, according to a Suez Canal Authority report -- but this fell to 12,700 by 2025 after Huthi rebels attacked ships in the Red Sea.

- Key oil passage -

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said 12 percent of world oil shipments passed through Bab al-Mandeb in the first half of 2023, before the Huthi attacks later that year.

Data published by the EIA indicates that the volume of oil transiting through Bab al-Mandeb in the first half of 2025 was less than half of the total volumes in 2023.

With Iranian forces closing off access to the Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz, exports via the Saudi Red Sea port of Yanbu meanwhile have approximately tripled to a record high of around four million barrels a day, according to analysts, including research group Rystad Energy.

- Militarised zone -

The region is one of the most highly militarised zones in the world.

The United States and France have major military bases in Djibouti and China in 2017 also opened its first such overseas base there.

After the conflict between Israel and Hamas militants erupted in Gaza in October 2023, the Huthis threatened to attack any ship heading to Israeli ports and stepped up their raids.

In response the European Union in 2024 launched a naval operation dubbed Aspides to protect shipping in the Red Sea.

US and UK forces also carried out strikes on Huthi targets in response to their attacks.

- Iranian threat -

The latest Middle East war erupted on February 28 when the United States and Israel began bombing Iran, prompting Tehran to retaliate with strikes across the region.

Iran's threat to Hormuz has driven up tanker traffic slightly through Bab al-Mandeb, said Rico Luman, a transport economist at ING bank.

"We're talking about three to four tankers more per day, which is still a notable difference," he told AFP.

Iranian news agency Tasnim on Wednesday quoted an unnamed military official as saying that Iran would target shipping in the Red Sea if the United States "attempts a ground operation... or if it seeks to impose costs on Iran through naval manoeuvres" in the Gulf region.

"The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is among the most strategic straits in the world, and Iran has both the will and the capability to pose a fully credible threat against it," the official said.

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Portuguese police have arrested a former French police officer suspected of killing his partner and his ex-girlfriend after kidnapping them and their children.

Cedric Prizzon, a one-time member of the Paris police and a former rugby league youth international, is also a fathers' rights activist who had been involved in a bitter public custody battle with his former partner.

He had been stripped of his custody rights and had already been convicted of harassing his former partner, after he illegally took their son to Spain for several weeks in 2021.

Portuguese police said they had found "two bodies buried... in an isolated place" late Wednesday, a day after stopping the 42-year-old Prizzon in a car near Meda in the north of the country with his two children, a boy of 12 and an 18-month-old baby girl.

Officers found a pump-action shotgun, fake documents and number plates, and 17,000 euros ($19,600) in cash in the vehicle.

Portuguese police said the two bodies they found were of the "partner and ex-partner" of the suspect, but that "procedures to identify the victims and consolidate the evidence are ongoing".

The suspect appeared before a judge on Thursday in Vila Nova de Foz Coa, not far from where he was detained. Bystanders chanted "Killer! Killer" after him as he made his way to the small provincial court, an AFP journalist saw.

The two children are to be returned to France, authorities said.

- 'Unhinged' -

French police have been hunting Prizzon since the women disappeared from their homes in the Aveyron area of south central France last week.

The manhunt for the powerfully built rugby prop forward, began after his former partner disappeared on Friday.

The 40-year-old did not show up for work in an insurance company and her son was not at school.

Prizzon, his new partner, aged 26, and their baby daughter were also missing from their home in the nearby village of Savignac. 

Detectives quickly suspected that Prizzon was behind the abductions.

As part of his bitter battle against his ex-partner over their son, Prizzon had mounted a campaign against her on social media, accusing her of endangering their son in local media.

He also took part in protests along with other fathers who had lost custody of their children.

Locals in the two villages where the women lived were horrified by their deaths.

One woman in her 60s told AFP that although she thought Prizzon was "unhinged", she "thought he would never go so far".

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Abdul Hai Hamidi gently opened each of the dozens of coffins, hoping to recognise one of his relatives who was killed in a Pakistani strike on a Kabul drug treatment centre. 

But it left him none the wiser and like other loved ones, he prepared to carry on his search.

"He's the son-in-law of my brother. We've been searching for him after the strike but we haven't yet found him," he told AFP in front of the Eidgah mosque before a funeral for the victims on Thursday.

"We went to the hospitals but we weren't given any clue about him. His name is Samiullah and he was 30 years old."

The airstrike -- just days before the end of Ramadan -- hit a drug rehabilitation centre in the Afghan capital on March 16, prompting international condemnation.

Islamabad, which has been in conflict with Afghanistan for months, maintains that it hit a military target. 

The force of the blast left many bodies torn apart, and it was difficult to identify some of the victims, the Norwegian Refugee Council, a humanitarian NGO, said after visiting the site shortly afterwards.

According to the spokesperson for the Afghan health ministry, Sharafat Zaman, the toll now stands at 411 dead and 263 wounded.

Two people died of their injuries and another person's body was found in the destruction since the Taliban government's first preliminary toll.

The UN mission in Afghanistan said its provisional toll was 143 dead and 119 wounded but added that was "very likely to increase".

"There are still bodies missing and hundreds of family members are contacting us," said Zaman. "There were rooms in the hospital where around 20 young people aged 18 or 19 were together.

"But everything was destroyed and their bodies have not been found."

- Reduced to ashes -

Samira Muhammadi went to the mosque to mourn her son, Aref Khan, 20, who dreamed of "becoming a good person, to help others", before he fell prey to drugs.

"They told me his body was completely burned, in ashes," she said. He had only been in the centre for a little over two weeks.

Muhammadi was not allowed to go onto the mosque forecourt where more than 50 wooden coffins were placed because she was not accompanied by a man, as required by the Taliban authorities' laws.

But later, at the cemetery where the victims were buried in mass graves, she looked in each coffin, hoping to find her son's remains. She couldn't find him.

In all, about 100 bodies have been buried in a mass grave in Kabul, according to the Afghan government. About 50 were interred last week. Others will be buried by their families privately.

Pakistan and Afghanistan have been in conflict for months, with Islamabad accusing Kabul of harbouring extremists who have carried out cross-border attacks on their territory.

The authorities in Kabul deny the accusation.

The conflict intensified on February 26, a few days after Pakistani airstrikes followed by a ground offensive by Afghan forces.

Both sides announced a truce for the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of Ramadan, but that ended on Monday evening.

Burhanuddin Kamali also came to the mosque hoping for answers. He has been looking for news of his 21-year-old nephew, Mohammed Issa, who was working in an emerald mine in Panjshir province until he got into drugs.

"I haven't succeeded in finding his body," he said, showing a photo of a smiling young man on his phone.

"Everyone in the family, his mother and father, are sad," he added. "When someone is missing in the family, it's a different feeling."

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Here are the latest developments in the Middle East war:

- 'Extremely' ahead of schedule -

President Donald Trump said Thursday that US military operations against Iran are "extremely" ahead of schedule, citing an original timeframe of four to six weeks for the war that began nearly a month ago.

"We estimated it would take approximately four to six weeks to achieve our mission. Twenty-six days in we're extremely, really, a lot ahead of schedule," Trump told his first cabinet meeting since the start of the conflict.

- 'Repay loyalty with loyalty' -

Abdul Malik al-Houthi, leader of Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi movement, warned on Thursday of a "military response" should the Middle East war require it.

The Houthis, a key part of Iran's so-called "axis of resistance", have so far refrained from joining the war.

"As the people of Yemen, we repay loyalty with loyalty," the Houthi leader said. "Any development in the battle that requires a military response, we will promptly undertake it... just as we did in previous rounds."

- Iran answers US proposal -

Iran has responded through unnamed intermediaries to a 15-point US plan to end the war and is now awaiting Washington's reply, the Tasnim news agency said.

The exact contents of the US plan, conveyed to Iran via Pakistan according to Pakistani officials, are not officially known.

- 'Kill Americans' -

The EU accused Russia of providing intelligence support to Iran in the Middle East war to "kill Americans", calling on the United States to increase pressure on Moscow.

"We see that Russia is helping Iran with intelligence to target Americans, to kill Americans, and Russia is also supporting Iran now with the drones so that they can attack neighbouring countries and also US military bases," the European Union's top diplomate Kaja Kallas said.

- Five killed in Lebanon -

Israeli strikes on Lebanon killed at least five people, Lebanese state media said, as Hezbollah militants claimed they had staged a new wave of attacks on Israel.

The Israeli military announced, meanwhile, the killing of a soldier in fighting in south Lebanon, raising to three the total number of troops killed since Hezbollah drew Lebanon into war with Israel.

- Gulf involvement - 

Gulf countries said they wanted to be involved in any talks between the United States and Iran.

"We emphasize the necessity of involving the GCC countries in any talks or agreements to resolve this crisis, in a way that contributes to strengthening their security and stability," Gulf Cooperation Council Secretary General Jasem AlBudaiwi said in a televised speech, adding that Iran had been asking vessels to pay sums of money to cross the Strait of Hormuz.

- 'Nothing from NATO' -

"NATO nations have done absolutely nothing to help with the lunatic nation, now militarily decimated, of Iran," US President Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.

"The USA needs nothing from NATO".

- 'Get serious soon' -

US President Donald Trump said Iran "better get serious soon" in US talks to end the Middle East war.

- 'De-escalate' -

Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand told AFP in an interview that she had spoken to all countries impacted in the region and all G7 members "to ensure that we are all collectively advocating for de-escalation and for the opening of the Strait of Hormuz and for a path forwards for the Iranian people that preserves their lives."

- Guards' commander killed - 

Defence Minister Israel Katz said that an Israeli airstrike had killed Alireza Tangsiri, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' navy, along with other senior navy officers.

There was no comment from the Guards.

- Drone 'lies' - 

The Kremlin denied a report that it was close to completing a shipment of drones to Iran.

"There are so many lies being spread by the media... Do not pay attention to them," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

- Deadly debris in Abu Dhabi - 

Two people were killed and three were wounded by falling debris after air defences intercepted a ballistic missile on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi, the government media office said.

- Wounded in Israel - 

Missile attacks from Iran left six people lightly injured in Israel, medics said.

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The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said on Thursday it was re-introducing testing for gender to determine eligibility to compete in the female category, preventing transgender women from competing.

The screening will mean Olympic women's sports from the 2028 Los Angeles Games will be limited to biological females, which would also rule out those with differences in sexual development (DSD) from competing.

In a major shift of policy, the IOC is abandoning rules it brought in in 2021 which allowed individual federations to decide their own policy and is instead implementing a policy across all sports.

"Eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females, determined on the basis of a one‑time SRY gene screening," the IOC said in a statement.

They will be carried out through a saliva sample, cheek swab or blood sample.

IOC president Kirsty Coventry said: "The policy we have announced is based on science and has been led by medical experts.

"At the Olympic Games even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat.

"So it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category. In addition, in some sports it would simply not be safe."

- Removes potential Trump clash -

The new policy removes a potential source of conflict between the IOC and US President Donald Trump at the Los Angeles Olympics.

Trump issued an executive order banning transgender athletes from women's sport soon after he came to office.

While sports such as swimming, athletics, cycling and rowing have brought in bans, many others have permitted transgender women to compete in the female category if they lowered their testosterone levels, normally through taking a course of drugs.

The new ban will also cover athletes with DSD, the rare condition in which a person's hormones, genes and reproductive organs may have a combination of male and female characteristics.

The best-known DSD athlete of recent years is South African runner Caster Semenya, the two-time Olympic women's 800m champion who has male XY chromosomes.

Gender testing was first introduced at the 1968 Olympics and last used at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta but then scrapped.

The new policy is likely to face some criticism from the scientific community.

The British Journal of Sports Medicine said in an article this month there was "no scientific data of acceptable quality regarding sport performance advantage of people with DSDs possessing an SRY gene."

It added: "Evidence regarding their athletic performance is extremely limited and problematic."

The IOC is bringing in the new policy after the women's boxing competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics was rocked by a gender row involving Algerian fighter Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan.

Khelif and Lin were excluded from the International Boxing Association's 2023 world championships after the IBA said they had failed eligibility tests.

However, the IOC allowed them both to compete at the Paris Games, saying they had been victims of "a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA". 

Both boxers went on to win gold medals.

Lin has since been cleared to compete in the female category at events run by World Boxing, the body that will oversee the sport at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

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African countries are taking a stand at the World Trade Organization to bolster their cotton sector, launching a platform tasked with mobilising investment to transform the cotton, textile and clothing value chain.

"The cotton sector represents one of the most promising drivers of industrialisation in Africa, particularly in West and Central Africa," said Cameroon's Trade Minister Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana, at a meeting on cotton ahead of the WTO's ministerial conference, which opened Thursday in the Cameroonian capital Yaounde.

WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala explained: "Currently, 98 percent of the region's cotton is exported as raw fibre; the goal is to change that."

Cotton has been discussed at the WTO for more than 20 years, at the request of the so-called Cotton Four (C-4) group: Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali.

These countries, later joined by Ivory Coast to form the C-4+, want to see an end to US, Chinese and European subsidies in their cotton sectors, arguing that they create unfair competition.

"This request has never been met," WTO Deputy Director-General Jean-Marie Paugam told AFP.

"No partner country in Africa or the C-4 has been willing to negotiate solely on one sector.

"These countries maintain this demand as a priority, but while waiting for progress in these negotiations, they are focusing their efforts on developing the cotton sector by promoting the processing of cotton products," he added.

"The goal is to increase added value."

- Vital role -

According to 2024 WTO data, these countries -- the largest cotton producers in Africa -- generate more than one million tonnes of cotton per year, representing 50 percent of Africa's total production and four percent of global production.

West Africa is the fourth-biggest cotton exporter, behind Brazil, the United States and Australia, figures from the International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC) show.

Benin, the leading producer in West Africa, exported $505 million worth of raw cotton in 2024, ranking fifth globally among raw cotton exporters.

That year, raw cotton was Benin's most exported product, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC).

In Burkina Faso, around four million of the country's 23 million inhabitants depend directly or indirectly on the cotton sector.

According to the Burkinabe trade ministry, cotton represents four percent of GDP and about 14 percent of the country's export earnings.

Cotton thus plays a vital role in the C-4+ economies, but these countries primarily export raw cotton because they lack processing facilities.

As a result, the gains made by women and young people, who make up most of the workforce in this sector, remain marginal, according to the WTO.

- Open for business - 

It is in this spirit that the WTO and football's world governing body FIFA launched a cotton partnership at the last WTO Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi in 2024.

The initiative aims to support the participation of African countries in the cotton value chain -- from production to processing and the export of finished products -- particularly in the sportswear market.

Development banks and other organisations have since joined the initiative.

According to the WTO, the C-4+ countries would need to attract $12 billion in investments over 10 years to unlock the sector's full potential.

It is estimated that, if realised, these investments would generate approximately 500,000 direct jobs, as well as 1.5 million indirect jobs throughout the cotton value chain.

On Wednesday, these countries, together with the WTO, launched the Partnership for Cotton Investment Platform, showcasing investment opportunities.

"The C-4 and Ivory Coast are open for business here and now!" said Mali's trade and industry minister Moussa Alassane Diallo.

"Thanks to the cotton partnership, we now have a credible roadmap, feasibility studies, and a clear institutional framework" for investments, he said.

apo/rjm/jj

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said on Thursday it was re-introducing testing for gender to determine eligibility to compete in the female category, preventing transgender women from competing.

The screening will mean Olympic women's sports at the 2028 Los Angeles Games will be limited to biological females, which would also rule out those with differences in sexual development (DSD) from competing.

The IOC is abandoning rules it brought in in 2021 which allowed individual federations to decide their own policy and implementing a policy across all sports.

"Eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females, determined on the basis of a one‑time SRY gene screening," the IOC said in a statement.

The test will be carried out through a saliva sample, cheek swab or blood sample.

IOC president Kirsty Coventry said: "The policy we have announced is based on science and has been led by medical experts.

"At the Olympic Games even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat.

"So it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category. In addition, in some sports it would simply not be safe."

The IOC is bringing in the new policy after the women's boxing competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics was rocked by a gender row involving Algerian fighter Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan.

Khelif and Lin were excluded from the International Boxing Association's 2023 world championships after the IBA said they had failed eligibility tests.

However, the IOC allowed them both to compete at the Paris Games, saying they had been victims of "a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA". 

Both boxers went on to win gold medals.

Lin has since been cleared to compete in the female category at events run by World Boxing, the body that will oversee the sport at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

Gender testing was first introduced at the 1968 Olympics and last used at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta but then scrapped after criticism from the scientific community.

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For a decade or more, "America First" has been a rallying cry against foreign wars. But as US bombs fall on Iran, many of President Donald Trump's supporters are embracing a muscular campaign abroad -- and insisting it still fits the doctrine.

On the opening day of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in the Dallas suburbs, attendees framed the conflict not as a departure from Trump's worldview, but as its natural extension.

"Americans have been getting killed by groups being funded by Iran for years, many years," said Serena Devoogd, a 26-year-old conservative social media influencer from Oregon and an Army veteran. 

"And so it was a long time coming -- this was something that needed to get done," she said.

Nevertheless, the latest US war in the Middle East, now approaching its fifth week, has exposed a fault line inside Trump's coalition between long-standing hawks and a populist wing shaped by years of rhetoric against "forever wars."

Polling shows approval of military action against Iran is slipping nationwide into negative territory. 

The war has also drawn particularly searing rebukes from prominent voices in Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, such as former Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly.

But ordinary self-identified MAGA voters see things differently, backing the war by wide margins -- 92 percent and 81 percent in recent CBS and Politico polling.

- 'Knows what he's doing' -

On the ground in Texas, doubts were often muted -- or deferred entirely to Trump himself.

"I think he knows what he's doing and I support him... I trust him 100 percent," said Penny Crosby, 62, from Beaumont, Texas.

"I think he's protecting us, because he said they were maybe starting a nuclear bomb and stuff," Crosby told AFP. "So that could have been headed right for us."

The instinct to place faith in Trump over institutions surfaced repeatedly among supporters interviewed at CPAC, billed as the world's largest conservative gathering.

Diane Hartgraves, 79, also from Texas, said she supported the strikes partly out of concern for how Iran might use a nuclear weapon.

"I believe that Iran does not need the nuclear bomb because they're not smart with it -- they're reactive," she said.

For Hartgraves, any dissonance with Trump's campaign promises to avoid foreign wars was easily reconciled.

"I don't think it's a 'war' war yet," she said, calling the strikes "proactive, pre-emptive" action that still fit within an "America First" approach.

Over four days in Texas, speakers are expected to strike a similar tone -- unapologetically hawkish, but framed through the lens of deterrence and strength rather than open-ended war.

That message seems likely to resonate with many of the attendees interviewed by AFP, even as some acknowledged a tension with MAGA's isolationist past.

- Flickers of unease -

Still, there were hints of unease, particularly over how long the conflict might last.

Ray Myers, 81, from east of Dallas, backed Trump's actions but warned that support could fray if the conflict dragged on.

"When you start a war, there's a risk, and you never know what can happen," he said, warning that rising fuel costs back home could test patience. 

"That's the barometer... the gas prices for the general public."

Outright opposition was rare, but not absent.

Razi Marshall, a 19-year-old business student at the University of Southern California and a member of the Young Republicans, said the war could become a costly and open-ended intervention.

"It doesn't help the United States in any way. It's actually been an abject failure," he said, warning that a push for regime change could lead to a ground war.

"This is the guy... who won because he was so anti-Iraq (war)," he told AFP. "And now he's doing the exact same thing with the exact same playbook."

For now, such dissent remains on the margins at gatherings like CPAC.

For most attendees, the calculation is simple: Trump deserves the benefit of the doubt and the war will be acceptable as long as it is fought quickly.

"I think it is America First," Hartgraves said. "When you don't want to be bombed? Yeah, I think that's America First."

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Diplomatic efforts to end the war in Iran are gathering pace, even though Tehran continues to insist talks with the United States are not happening.

Here is what we know about the behind-the-scenes mediation efforts:

- What is on the table? -

After announcing "very good" talks with an unnamed "top person" in Iran on Monday, Trump said Tuesday that he had sent a plan and that it "all starts with, they cannot have a nuclear weapon."

A 15-point proposal to stop the fighting has been conveyed to Iran via Pakistan, Pakistani officials have confirmed.

But the exact contents remain unknown and the identity of Trump's "top person" is a mystery, if he exists at all. 

The New York Times and Al Jazeera have reported that Trump is proposing a one-month ceasefire during which the two sides would restart talks about the same issues they were discussing before the war.

These include a US demand that Iran hand over its enriched uranium stockpile, stop any further enrichment, and agree to limits on its missile programme, as well as cease support for militant groups in the region. 

If Iran met US conditions and opened up the strategic Strait of Hormuz for shipping, which it has effectively closed, Trump is offering relief from all sanctions, the reports suggest.

After saying that Iran wanted to make a deal "so badly", the US president warned Thursday that they "better get serious soon".

The head of the UN nuclear watchdog Rafael Grossi has said a meeting in Islamabad at the weekend is under discussion.

- What does Iran say? -

Publicly, no Iranian official has confirmed any negotiations, but the language used is ambiguous.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said messages were "being exchanged through friendly countries or through certain different individuals" but insisted that "this is neither called dialogue nor negotiation".

But he added that "if it is necessary for a position to be taken, it will certainly be decided".

Pakistani and Egyptian officials have confirmed they are serving as diplomatic backchannels.

- What are Iran's demands? -

According to an unidentified Iranian official cited by Iran's Press TV on Wednesday, Tehran has sent five conditions for an end to hostilities.

These include ending "aggression and assassinations", setting up a mechanism guaranteeing that neither Israel nor the United States would resume the war, as well as financial compensation.

They also include a cessation of hostilities on all fronts, meaning Israel would stop bombarding Tehran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and possibly Hamas in Gaza.

The official also said Tehran wanted international recognition of its sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.

On March 11, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian laid out Iranian terms as "recognising Iran's legitimate rights, payment of reparations, and firm international guarantees against future aggression".

The Wall Street Journal reported that Tehran was also demanding the closure of US military bases in the Gulf. 

- Can compromises be found? -

Analysts say the conflict has strengthened hardliners in Tehran where the rhetoric is defiant and increasingly confident.

Trump has bombed the country twice amid negotiations, first in June last year and again on February 28. 

As for US demands, Tehran has insisted since 2003 it is not seeking a nuclear weapon but has a right to enrich for civilian nuclear energy purposes. 

It has also refused curbs on its ballistic missile programme or discussions about its support for militant groups such as Hezbollah or the Houthis in Yemen.

Tehran's demand for reparations is likely a non-starter, as is any suggestion of the US closing Gulf military bases. 

It is not clear how its sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz would work, or how meaningful security guarantees could be formulated, unless they involved outside powers such as Russia or China. 

- So is there no hope? -

The outcome may come down to how badly Trump wants to end the war, and whether Iran's leaders view their interests as being best served by a ceasefire. 

Trump would walk away claiming victory, saying he has destroyed Iran's military and nuclear capabilities.

The Islamic republic could also claim victory, pointing to how its forces resisted four weeks of US and Israeli onslaught while also landing blows on US interests in the region and in Israel.

"Both sides need to be able to claim victory and save face, whatever deal they agree on," a diplomat based in the Middle East told AFP on condition of anonymity. "The process will take some time."

But even with a ceasefire, the question of Iran's nuclear programme and its 440-kilogram stockpile of highly enriched uranium remains unresolved.

Some analysts believe the talks are a smokescreen as Trump prepares a ground offensive to re-open the Strait of Hormuz by force or seize Iranian oil assets.

Iran has signalled it would use its Houthi allies in Yemen to attack shipping in the Red Sea, which would open up a new front in a war of spiralling economic, political and military repercussions.

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