00:00The president's saying the Strait is completely open.
00:02Is it, in fact, on this Saturday morning?
00:05Listen, yesterday I asked for cautious when that announcement came,
00:11particularly because we need to verify the full openness of the Strait of Hormuz.
00:17When I immediately contacted the littoral states in the region, including Iran,
00:22it was clear that the freedom of navigation is not fully restored
00:26because the traffic separation scheme that has been adopted by the IMO back in 1968
00:32is still not open for navigations.
00:35There are concerns that they may be mined,
00:37which meant that the announcement from Iran about the opening of the Strait of Hormuz
00:42was something similar to what they announced earlier,
00:45when there will be some connections or some verifications from that side.
00:50That actually doesn't follow the right of freedom of navigation.
00:54And this is the reason why I asked for cautions
00:56and that I was verifying the information
00:58because for us the full openness has to be in a safe manner.
01:02So you're talking about that TSS traffic pattern,
01:05the one that's been there, the ones that ships have been using.
01:07That was never really reopened.
01:11That is correct.
01:12And at present, there are concerns that there may be mines
01:15in this traffic separation scheme.
01:18This is one of those areas where countries met yesterday,
01:21led by the United Kingdom and France,
01:24in order to provide that assistance to verify and clean the Strait of Hormuz from mines
01:30once the conflict comes to an end.
01:32We all want progress,
01:34but we also need to make sure that any transit in the Strait of Hormuz
01:38is not going to be during any dangerous times
01:41and, of course, put at risk the life of the seafarers.
01:44A sticking point seems to be, Mr. Secretary General,
01:47the presence of this U.S. military blockade.
01:50The President of the United States adamant that it stay in place,
01:53Iranian officials saying it needs to go.
01:55How is that affecting the flow of traffic?
01:58And have you gotten any indication that the U.S.
01:59is willing to move all of that military might here in the days and weeks ahead?
02:04I haven't received any official confirmation from the United States in that respect.
02:09And, of course,
02:09that announcement is related to traffic that goes into the Iranian ports.
02:15So this is slightly different to the way that we are approaching
02:18the transit in the Strait of Hormuz.
02:20The way that we are working right now
02:23is to verify that the Strait is fully open once the conflict comes to an end,
02:28that there are not hazards like mines,
02:30and that the traffic separation schemes will continue to operate
02:33just the way that it was doing it before the conflict started.
02:37And for that, we already have developed an evacuation plan
02:40in assistance with the industry
02:42and those organizations that look after the seafarers,
02:44as well as the flagstates of the ships that are in the Persian Gulf.
02:48Mr. Secretary, you and I were messaging earlier while we were on the air, actually.
02:52It's one of the reasons we wanted to have you back on.
02:53Do you have any updates on this incident?
02:56There may be one.
02:56There may have been two incidents where IRGC fastboats
02:59appear to have approached tankers, possibly fired on a British ship.
03:03Now, it sounds like the crews and the vessels are safe,
03:06but what can you tell us about that one or possibly two situations?
03:10The information is quite fluid at present,
03:13and we are working in verifying exactly what's happened
03:15because of the announcement this morning, again,
03:18reverting the openness of the Strait of Hormuz.
03:20So there is information of at least one vessel that was approached and was fired at,
03:25but there's no damage to the vessels,
03:27and thankfully also not a single seafarer has been harmed.
03:31These have also been broadcasted to other vessels in the regions.
03:36So companies and ship owners continue to be cautious of this.
03:40That's the call that I made yesterday.
03:41We need to verify what is happening.
03:44Some vessels continue to turn off their automatic identification systems
03:47in order not to be targeted,
03:49and this is why it takes us a few more time
03:53in order to actually get the correct information.
03:56For my last question, I'm going to actually steal it from Christina,
03:58who's been asking about this over the course of the morning,
04:00but I think you can give us the concrete information on all of this.
04:03You've spoken with us in the past about how many seafarers are on these vessels
04:06in the straits, some 20,000 in total.
04:09How many of them, if any, have been able to get off of those vessels
04:12during the course of this conflict,
04:13or have they been effectively stuck on those ships
04:16over the course of these last seven or eight weeks?
04:18A handful of seafarers have actually transited.
04:21If we looked into the movements,
04:23and when some of them used the corridor
04:26that the Islamic Republic of Iran introduced,
04:29we saw that there were at least sort of eight or ten vessels
04:32that at any given time transit.
04:35Yesterday, we're now verifying the few vessels
04:37that managed to sail through the Strait of Hormuz
04:41when the information was sent out about the openness of it.
04:45We still have a large number of seafarers.
04:48Just because a handful of vessels have transit
04:50doesn't mean that we have gone down from 20,000
04:52to a more significant reduced number.
04:55So the focus remains on roughly that number.
04:59Early next week, we will have more information
05:01on what is the date in relation to the seafarers trapped there.
05:05But I can tell you one thing.
05:06If it's one seafarer trapped in the Strait of Hormuz,
05:10that's one too many.
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