00:00Let's next talk to Dr. Julia Roknifar, the Senior Lecturer at the School of Law and Governance at Taylor's University
00:07in Malaysia.
00:08Julia, welcome. The United States saying it's hit a third tanker near Oman, the strike killing three Indian sailors.
00:16Iran now calling this ceasefire meaningless, is it?
00:23I'm afraid so, but that's not the news at all.
00:27I would say that the ceasefire was pretty meaningless since the start.
00:31Of course, the parties, some of the parties in this process wanted to believe and to remain hopeless that there
00:37is some breakthrough on the diplomatic field is possible.
00:40But we've observed how this ceasefire has been continuously breached on multiple occasions.
00:47Also, how did we come to the very start of this conflict right in the midst of seemingly successful,
00:54at least to hear from the Omani counterparts, the Omani mediator, successful negotiations.
01:02And now, during the recent days, again, we are hearing from some insider sources in Qatar and Iran
01:10that there is some sort of ceasefire being negotiated again, and there is a proposal on the table.
01:16It's just what's left is to sign, and we can see Trump is ramping up, again, aggressive statements.
01:24So it doesn't seem there is an appetite to come to any sort of agreement.
01:28Besides, we've heard on multiple occasions that Iran is not ready to accept any agreement,
01:36unless certain conditions are satisfied, like the ceasefire for Lebanon and also a return of at least some of its
01:45frozen assets.
01:46So it just seems to be a continuation of the war that started in February.
01:52It's just with the difference that it has been of a low intensity.
01:56And up until now, it might escalate with more force than before.
02:02Given all of that, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance saying that a deal could absolutely come before the
02:09U.S. midterm elections.
02:11I mean, how realistic is that?
02:15That also remains unrealistic.
02:18Possibly it's a move to calm down the market, the shipping and insurance companies,
02:23by also saying that there are some couple of hundred tankers that the United States secured.
02:28They passage through the Strait of Hormuz, which still remains much less than what used to be counted in thousands.
02:37Also, it doesn't seem to add to the conditions that Iran demands for to be satisfied on its side.
02:46There has been a lot of damage done to Iran itself, including the fact that the United States are complicit
02:57in committing war crimes during the war.
03:00I was quite surprised that not many news outlets covered this fact that some of the U.S. drones were
03:08seen, for example, around the Farz province,
03:11that's around the city of Shiraz, throwing mines among the civilian population.
03:16And some people actually died from that.
03:18And we haven't seen these being covered.
03:20So you might imagine, on the Iranian side, there is not much appetite to go for it, to come for
03:26the negotiating table
03:28and do something, sign something so meaningless that then it will start over again.
03:35Julia, thank you.
03:35Dr. Julia Roknafar, the senior lecturer in the School of Law and Governance at Taylors University in Malaysia.
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