President Donald Trump says Iran wants to negotiate with the U.S. after his threat to strike the country over its crackdown on protesters.

Anti-government protests in Iran have appeared to accelerate, sparked by economic woes and disillusionment with Tehran's clerical leaders.

Several Iranians who protested in Iran over the past few days have spoken to CNN about seeing enormous crowds as well as brutal violence on the streets of Tehran, with one woman saying she saw “bodies piled up on each other” in a hospital.

U.S. President Donald Trump said that Iran proposed negotiations after he threatened to strike the nation over its bloody crackdown on protesters. Activists said the death toll in protests rose to at least 544.

"I'm not in the police to kill people," says one Iranian officer as the regime vows to continue its protest crackdown.

Iranians gathered on the street near the Kahrizak Forensic Medical Center south of the capital to try to identify their loved ones among dozens of bodies.

Iran has threatened that it is “ready for war” after Donald Trump threatened military action in the country if deaths continue mounting in the crackdown on anti-government protests. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States may meet Iranian officials and was in contact with the opposition, as he weighed a range of strong responses including military options to a violent crackdown on Iranian protests which pose one of the biggest challenges to clerical rule since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Video shared on social media on January 9th showed a mosque burning in Tehran during Iran’s most widespread protests in years. The date when the video was recorded could not be independently verified.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei confirmed that communication lines between Tehran and Washington remain open through a US special envoy or intermediaries like Switzerland, despite protests in Iran.