Iran's state-run Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs said on Saturday that the war with the United States and Israel had killed more than 3,400 people in the Islamic republic. The announcement comes in the midst of a two-week ceasefire in the conflict, which erupted in late February with US-Israeli strikes on Tehran. Foundation head Ahmad Mousavi was quoted by the ISNA news agency as saying that 3,468 "martyrs... fell during the recent conflict".

A previous toll from the head of the Iranian Legal Medicine Organization issued on April 12 said 3,375 people in Iran had been killed in the war. The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said on April 7 that at least 3,636 people had been killed, including 1,701 civilians -- among them at least 254 children -- as well as 1,221 military personnel and 714 people whose status had not been classified. Progress had been made in negotiations with the United States to end the war, Iran's parliamentary speaker said on Saturday night, but added the sides were still far from an agreement. "We are still far from the final discussion," Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who is also one of Iran's negotiators, said in a national televised address, adding "we made progress in the negotiations, but there are many gaps and some fundamental points remain".