Iran hardens demands on Strait of Hormuz

**Ankur Desai** (0:00)
This is The Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Ankur Desai, and in the early hours of Sunday, the 9th of August, these are our main stories. Iran says negotiations over new arrangements for the Strait of Hormuz are going well, but sets out conditions for the US before the waterway can be reopened. Ukraine's President Zelensky pleads for more European support on a visit to Serbia, a traditional Russian ally. And the US Senate confirms Todd Blanche as the new Attorney General, putting Donald Trump's former lawyer in charge of the Justice Department.
Also in this podcast, Palestinians accuse Israel of weaponizing archaeology in the occupied West Bank.

**Anna-Marie Thorby** (0:45)
And orders coming minutes apart, one of them for 71 books, biographies, cartoons, political cartoon books, it was obviously not human.

**Ankur Desai** (0:55)
Why are AI companies bulk buying old books and then destroying them?
Both Iran and Oman say negotiations over new arrangements to manage traffic through the Strait of Hormuz have been constructive. But Tehran has warned that any deal would not see an immediate reopening of the vital waterway. It set out demands the US must meet before the Strait can be reopened. Our Middle East analyst, Sebastian Usher, told me more about the Iranian conditions.

**Sebastian Usher** (1:29)
It looks like a hardening of Iran's stance.
These are conditions that have been around, essentially a part of a memorandum of understanding of a framework agreement, but the timing was different and left more vague. What Iran's security chief has just come out with is demands saying that in order just a Strait of Hormuz to be fully reopened, to be fully operational, they need to be met. So that's the war reparations, that sanctions relief, the full withdrawal of all US troops and forces in the region, as well as an immediate end to the blockade that the US has imposed. So all of those were sort of part of what the memorandum of understanding had, but the timing and the mechanism of it seemed very different. And the conditions from the US side were still very much about Iranian commitments over its nuclear program and giving up any ambitions to develop a nuclear bomb and potentially hand over the enriched uranium that it has. This seems to change that and put much more pressure on the Americans to do this now.

**Ankur Desai** (2:36)
Why have Iran got this emboldened stance then all of a sudden?

**Sebastian Usher** (2:41)
I mean, Iran has watched, as everyone else has, how President Trump has basically walked the world up to the hill and then walked them straight down again. I mean, we've had media organizations like us, like CNN, essentially noting how many times President Trump has done that. I think it's at least seven times that he's threatened utter destruction in Iran and then stepped back and said, that's because a deal is imminent. He did that just a week ago. So therefore, they have a stronger hand because the Strait of Hormuz is still essentially closed. Very few vessels are going through.
There is a deal that is being worked on at the moment between Iran and Oman to open a new route. But though both sides have talked about there being progress in that and constructive talks, that hasn't happened yet. And Iran has been stressing throughout the days those talks will be going on, that even if it does happen, it's not connected necessarily to the full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which of course is what the US wants.

**Ankur Desai** (3:37)
President Trump has the pressure of midterms on the horizon, losing support at home from his Maghre core supporter base. Where does it leave him and the US right now then?

**Sebastian Usher** (3:45)
I mean, in a difficult situation, there's no doubt. I mean, as President Trump, as the US said throughout, I mean, they have the military capability, obviously, to wreak that kind of destruction on Iran, but they don't have the political will to do it essentially and the consequences, but there would be, obviously, economically, going far beyond the dire consequences of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and also now with the Houthis in Yemen, closing down another important waterway, the Bab Armanda, not closing it down, but making it more difficult for Saudi ships to go through. So that pressure has only intensified, it hasn't weakened, and each time that Washington has escalated, it only seems to have pushed Iran, the leadership, into an even more obstinate position, where they carry out more attacks on Gulf countries, they widen the conflict. And that price, politically, that President Trump, the Republican Party, the US itself, you know, has been paying, it just doesn't seem to be worth it, it doesn't seem to be accomplishing what they want. So how many times can President Trump issue such extraordinary threats and meant not go through with them? Just very briefly, I mean, this deal between Iran and Oman just a few weeks ago was something that President Trump utterly ruled out because it leaves Iran with considerable control over the Strait of Hormuz, it may well be able to charge fees for vessels going through.