Alex Thomson

Very good morning, Clare.

Well, yeah, I'm just being perhaps a bit flip there, but kind of honest, you know, nobody knows where anything is going.

Let's take two strands of this, if you like.

For instance, yesterday was a kind of typical day in this process.

You have Donald Trump on the one hand threatening what certainly in theory looked like a potential major war crime, i.e., you know, if you don't come to talks, then we're going to bomb any bridge and all the power stations.

and all the civilian superstructure across the Iranian nation on the one hand.

And then over in Turkey, a very quiet moment, if you will, with the Iranian deputy foreign minister who said, look, yeah, we don't understand.

and, you know, completely confusing mixed messages from the U.S.

president.

And basically, they're losing patience with this.

But he did also say, and it's gone largely unremarked, to the media, don't get too excited with the ups and downs of this.

I mean, I know, I know, it's not going to go far with that, but...

What he meant was in the background behind all this, we are still talking and there is still a process here.

So if you like front of house noise, confusion, bluster and bullying to some degree from both sides behind that, there is still some kind of process in place.

So those are the two things you've got to consider here.

Yes, there's no doubt about that.

Contacts are happening all the time.

I mean, obviously, both sides want out of this for very different reasons.

Clearly, the Iranians, you know, they're not stupid.

They don't want to get bombed.