Strikes continue amid differing accounts of talks

Iran has received a message from Washington through mediators about possible talks between the two warring countries, a senior Iranian Foreign Ministry official said on Monday.

"We received points from the US through mediators and they are being reviewed," an Iranian official was quoted by CBS News as saying.

Earlier on Monday, US President Donald Trump said on social media that the US and Iran had "very good and productive conversations", only for Iran to immediately dismiss it as a ploy to depress energy prices and buy time for military planning.

Despite the positive developments that offer hope for ending the crisis, which has entered its fourth week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel will continue to strike Iran and Lebanon to protect its "vital interests" even as the US weighs a ceasefire.

Following a phone call with Trump on Monday, Netanyahu released a video statement, saying Trump believes there is an opportunity to build on the major gains of the joint US-Israeli attack on Iran to achieve the goals through a diplomatic agreement.

On Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi expressed hope that all parties would seize every opportunity and window for peace and act as soon as possible to start peace talks, during a phone conversation with Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi.

Araghchi briefed Wang on the latest developments in the regional situation and thanked China for providing emergency humanitarian assistance.

He said the Strait of Hormuz remains open to all and that vessels can pass through safely, though countries that are at war with Iran are not under consideration.

Wang emphasized that all hot-spot issues should be resolved through dialogue and negotiation rather than by force. It is always better to talk than to keep fighting, he said.

Iran fired multiple waves of missiles at Israel on Tuesday, triggering air raid sirens. Israel, meanwhile, pounded the southern suburbs of Beirut in Lebanon. Israel's military said on Tuesday its fighter jets had carried out a large wave of strikes in central Tehran on Monday, targeting key command centers.

Meanwhile, Iran named on Tuesday a former Revolutionary Guards commander, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, as the new chief of the Supreme National Security Council to replace his slain predecessor Ali Larijani, state television said.

Oil prices briefly fell below $100 a barrel after Trump claimed his government was in talks to end the crisis. But that respite was short-lived, with the price of Brent crude back to $104 a barrel in morning trading, up more than 40 percent since the war started.

Asian markets traded higher on Tuesday, tracking gains in Europe and on Wall Street in the aftermath of Trump's announcement.

Axios, citing an unnamed Israeli official, identified Trump's interlocutor as Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of Iran's parliament. The outlet and Reuters further reported that US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner could meet an Iranian delegation for talks in Pakistan as early as this week.

But Ghalibaf said on Monday that "no negotiations" were held with the US. "Fake news is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped," he said on X.

Esmail Kowsari, a member of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said the US and Israel were seeking to stoke divisions.

"We must act wisely. Their nature is to sow discord to erode public trust in officials and fabricate the appearance of such actions, when none have occurred," he was quoted as saying by the semiofficial Fars News Agency.

Trump's extension of the deadline came as a contingent of thousands of US Marines is en route to the region, due to arrive by Friday, fueling speculation that Washington may attempt to seize Kharg Island — a strategic Iranian oil hub off its coast.

"As Trump has, in the past, he could be moving military assets into place, in this case to prepare for an invasion and seizure of Kharg Island, while using negotiations as a cover until those assets are fully combat-ready," wrote the New York-based think tank The Soufan Center in an analysis.

Tehran had vowed to strike power and water infrastructure across the region in retaliation.

Danny Citrinowicz, a security analyst and former Israeli intelligence expert on Iran, wrote on X: "Trump blinked first — out of clear recognition that striking Iran's energy infrastructure would trigger direct and severe retaliation."

Meanwhile, Zhai Jun, Chinese government's special envoy on the Middle East issue, met with Israeli Ambassador to China Irit Ben-Abba in Beijing on Tuesday. The two sides exchanged views on the current tensions in the Middle East.

Zhao Jia in Beijing contributed to this story.