Latest / INSIGHT TODAY / US optimistic of a Strait of Hormuz deal between Iran and Oman

Transcript

US optimistic of a Strait of Hormuz deal between Iran and Oman · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello, I'm mariamne Maserrian. This is the Iran War today,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: our daily briefing, bringing you up to date with all
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: we need to know about the last twenty four hours
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: of the US war with Iran. Well, let's start with
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: some of today's key developments.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Despite threats of decapitation from the White House on Monday,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: the US seems confident that some sort of deal can
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: be struck. Trade Secretary Scott bess And says a deal
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: to open the Strait of Hormus is likely.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: We are in talks with the Iranians, and I think
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: there is a chance we may have a deal today
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: or tomorrow to open the straight and move towards a
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: more normalized position in this conflict thing.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Well, there are no direct talks currently planned between the
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: US and Iran, but the optimism comes from reports that
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Iran and Oman and nearing a deal on navigation methods
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: through this waterway. It would include a service fee split
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: between both countries. Meanwhile, Yemen's who Thies claim they've hit
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: a sensitive target at Saudi Arabia's Nadran airport with a
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: drone strike. The group, which is one of the number
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: of Iranian proxies operating in the region, has launched a
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: number of strikes at Saudi oil facilities and remains a
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: major threat to shipping in the Red Sea and bab
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: El Mandeb Strait. Well, despite the regional attacks and closure
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: of the Strait of Hormon's, big oil companies have reported
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: record profits. As Goldman Sachs warns, oil prices will remain
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: high until the conflict is resolved. So could there really
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: be a deal as soon as tomorrow when it comes
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: to the Strait of Hormuz, Well, US Secretary of State
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Marco Rubio says nothing is agreed yet, but America's top
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: diplomat said there's been progress in discussions with Iran and Oman.
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: Well, I think there are two things to talk about.
• 1:59
  Speaker 5: This.
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: They can never have anycular weapon, the presence and cleared
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: about that. So the denuclearization of Iran is the ultimate deal.
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: I think the immediate deal and the one that you
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: see I want to focus on is the straits. The straits.
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: You know, there are ships moving through the straits that
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: are there's oil moving right now through the straits, and
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: the straits.
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: Are open there.
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: Nonetheless, I think that there's a conversation and the negotiation
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: that we are involved in between Oman and in Iran,
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: how more ships can be able to go through there
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: safely in the short term as we move towards these
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: longer term talks about denilearization and suffice that the stay
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: of progress met in those.
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: Talks, but not finality yet.
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: We're hoping that will happen and it very shortly.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Okay, So let's look closer at that potential deal between
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Iran and Oman on the Strait of Hormos. According to
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: The New York Times, the deal would develop a new
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: two lane system. Ships entering the Persian Gulf via the
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Strait of Hormus would navigate through Iranian controlled waters, while
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: those exiting the Gulf would use Omani controlled waters or roots.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Both countries would split a fee for straight control, with
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Iran and Iman taking half each. However, instead of using
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: the term toll, which the US has strongly opposed, the
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: phrase service fee is reportedly being used instead. Well, let's
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: speak to our North America correspondent Shima Khalil and Shama. Yesterday,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: mister Trump was threatening Iran with heavy strikes. Now his
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: team seemed confident that a deal could be imminent.
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: I think the language and the discrepancy in the language
• 3:34
  Speaker 5: is really has been part of this pattern and cycle
• 3:38
  Speaker 5: that the Trump administration has used in the past five months,
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: going into the six month really of this war, President
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: Trump using heavy language like decimation, decapitation, World War two
• 3:49
  Speaker 5: scale military action, then pulling backs citing diplomatic efforts, Iran
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: denying diplomatic efforts, and then you'll get top diplomats like
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: Marco Rubio getting into the nitty grittis and saying, look,
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: there are talks that are happening over some details. Does
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: that mean that these two sides are sitting together around
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: a table? Highly highly unlikely. Oman really seems to be
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: the key negotiator here or the key mediator between the
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: two sides, And really the devil is in the detail.
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: There are so many things to unpick. I think when
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: we say opening the Strait of Hormuz, it's not as
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: straightforward as someone flipping a switch. Opening the Strait of
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: Hormos means that there could be free shipping as pre war.
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: That is, that is highly unlikely and it's likely to
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: take a long long time. What we're looking is potentially
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: increasing the shipping. And I'll give you an example just
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: this weekend twenty ships have gone through the Strait of Hormus.
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: Compare that to one hundred in pre war terms. But
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: also remember that there's the issue of mining. The Strait
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: of Hormuz is heavily mined. We are now getting the
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: latest line that Iran is weighing allowing Europe to d
• 4:58
  Speaker 5: mine the Strait of Hormus. That is going to take time.
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: And then there is the toll issue that you've mentioned.
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: Oman is now and talks with Iran about this issue
• 5:07
  Speaker 5: about how ships go in, how they leave, how much
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: money they pay, who they pay you to, and how
• 5:13
  Speaker 5: it's split. This is extremely technical and extremely complicated. There
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: will be a lot of back and forth. And if
• 5:19
  Speaker 5: you run your negotiators have taught us anything with the
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: situation inside Iran, the way that they negotiate, it takes
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: days for them to muld this over, take it back
• 5:30
  Speaker 5: to the Iranian leadership and come back with an answer.
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: This is something that the Trump administration has grown extremely
• 5:36
  Speaker 5: frustrated with through the past few months, and I think
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: this is really the key. Is President Trump going to
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: get more frustrated and will demand faster answers, or is
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: he going to be patient enough to get some gains
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: with US political pressure mounting up on him.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Here, okay Shima, thank you well. Castro Naji is with
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: me now from BBC Persians, what's the view. That's the
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: view from the US, what's the view from Iran? What
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: are they thinking right now?
• 6:02
  Speaker 6: Iranians are not saying much at all about the latest
• 6:07
  Speaker 6: nittiquity of the talks. If there are talks going on,
• 6:11
  Speaker 6: I get the impression that the reason is that there's
• 6:14
  Speaker 6: quite a lot of opposition to talks with the US
• 6:18
  Speaker 6: within Iran. There's almost a power struggle going on with
• 6:23
  Speaker 6: President Pezeshkian and the council, this Supreme National Security Council
• 6:32
  Speaker 6: on one side and the hardliners on the other side.
• 6:36
  Speaker 6: The hardliners don't want anything to do with negotiating with America.
• 6:40
  Speaker 6: They think it's a mirage. Americans never are true to
• 6:46
  Speaker 6: their promises anyway, and the policy should be avenging the
• 6:51
  Speaker 6: blood of the Supreme Leader, previous Supreme leader. That means
• 6:56
  Speaker 6: basically killing the leaders of Israel and the US. That's
• 7:01
  Speaker 6: what they want. So that's that's the hard line attitude
• 7:04
  Speaker 6: of these people who don't want to have anything to
• 7:07
  Speaker 6: do with the thing. But President position is very keen
• 7:12
  Speaker 6: that they should go back to that memorandum of understanding
• 7:15
  Speaker 6: in one way or another, uh and and open the
• 7:18
  Speaker 6: straight of homes. This straight of homes, the way you've
• 7:23
  Speaker 6: just explained, it seems pretty favorable to Iran. Iran controls
• 7:29
  Speaker 6: who goes into the Persian Gulf and has oversight over
• 7:34
  Speaker 6: who comes out of the Persian Golf. So that means
• 7:37
  Speaker 6: basically also having control over the sovereignty or the territorial
• 7:43
  Speaker 6: waters of Orman, which is very strange. But I get
• 7:47
  Speaker 6: the impression from what I read in various reports is
• 7:51
  Speaker 6: that Americans are pushing on mon to agree to this thing,
• 7:56
  Speaker 6: whether they see this as an entim agreement or a
• 8:00
  Speaker 6: permanent one.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: We then, okay, Castro, thank you very much. Will we
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: talk a lot about the high price of oil as
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: a result of the war in Iran, and as a
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: result of that high price, big oil companies, well, they've
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: reported record profits. Saudi Aramco, the world's largest producer, reported
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: a forty four percent increase in its profits in the
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: latest quarter. The five biggest Western energy majors BP, Chevron, Exonmobile, Shell,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: and Total Energies have also posted a combined net profit
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: of almost forty seven billion dollars. Let's speak to our
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: North America business correspondent Samia Hussein Semeira. These are huge
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: profit numbers we're talking about here.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, if customers are the ones that are suffering as
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: a result of the high price of oil and gasoline,
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: then it is the companies that provide that that are
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: really reaping in the benefits to this current escalation in
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: the conflict that's been going on now for several months now.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: If you talk about the current price of oil, we
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: see that it's dipped back down on based on those
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: hopes that the Strait of Hormuz can be open. But
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: the result is that all of this instability has really
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: meant big profits for these major oil companies that are
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: not reinvesting it into green technologies perhaps, but are now
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: just reinvesting into other areas where they can get more oil.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: So the biggest example would be of course Venezuela. Lots
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: of oil companies that are going and trying to invest there.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, Samarra, thank you. Let's take a step away now
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: from the Middle East, because there's been a series of
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: water hacking attacks in the US that may have a
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: link to Iran. Many were surprised last week when the
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: US state of Minnesota reported that more than thirty of
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: its state water systems had faced a coordinated cyber attack.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: The situation escalated further when the FBI warned cyber attacks
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: have been reported in seven states, so who's behind it?
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: While the US Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency is reportedly investigating
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: whether Iran was involved, but Donald Trump says otherwise, there was.
• 10:11
  Speaker 6: A cyber attack, and they blame it on Iran.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: I don't think so.
• 10:14
  Speaker 6: I think I blame it on Minnesota because they're grossly incompetent.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Well, that's the president's position that Iran wasn't involved, but
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: a number of cyber experts have told the BBC it's
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: likely Iran was involved. Here's our reporter Anna Faggie, who's
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: been looking into the claims.
• 10:30
  Speaker 7: Experts told the BBC Iran is likely responsible for these attacks.
• 10:35
  Speaker 7: That's because historically attacks like these ones are carried out
• 10:38
  Speaker 7: by North Korea or Iran, and since the US is
• 10:41
  Speaker 7: engaged in an ongoing conflict with Iran, it's far more
• 10:44
  Speaker 7: likely to be then. Iran has a history of carrying
• 10:47
  Speaker 7: out attacks like these against the US, and the US
• 10:50
  Speaker 7: has promised to carry out similar attacks against Iranian infrastructure.
• 10:54
  Speaker 7: But we're unlikely to see the US government come out
• 10:57
  Speaker 7: and say Iran is responsible for these attacks. That's for
• 11:00
  Speaker 7: two reasons, according to experts. The first is that it's
• 11:04
  Speaker 7: possible another group or country carried out these attacks on
• 11:07
  Speaker 7: Iran's behalf, acting as a proxy. The second is that
• 11:11
  Speaker 7: it could be seen as a loss politically for the
• 11:13
  Speaker 7: Trump administration to come out and say the Iranians successfully
• 11:16
  Speaker 7: carried out a cyber attack on US soil. And as
• 11:19
  Speaker 7: one expert told me, if you want to bring a
• 11:21
  Speaker 7: nation to its knees, you go after their power and
• 11:24
  Speaker 7: you go after their water.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Now, whether you're joining us on YouTube, TikTok, sounds, radio,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: or TV, thank you for your time. We'll be back
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: at the same time tomorrow with the Iran War Today