David E. Sanger
speaker
1,917 appearances
16 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard 23 Jul
David E. Sanger’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 11 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 2.
Appearances
its best efforts for safe passage.
And the interpretation that the American side was pushing was that this commits the Iranians to opening up the narrow Strait of Hormuz, which has three different channels, one near Iran, one in the middle of the strait, one closer to Oman, and that traffic would essentially be restored to what it was before the war started on February 28th.
But the fact of the matter is, Rachel, that never happened.
The Iranians immediately said, yes, we'll reopen the strait, but we're only going to open up one channel.
It's the channel closest to Iran, the one that takes you through Iranian territorial waters.
Because that channel is the one that's closest in their control.
It's within their territorial waters.
They patrol it with their own ships.
And ultimately, if that's the only channel open, it's the one they plan to go charge a toll or some kind of service fee for if you want to get through the Strait of Hormuz.
Well, that's right.
And I asked some administration officials who were briefing us on Friday.
was this just a difference of interpretation?
And one of the very senior people who was involved in this said, no, no, no, no.
The Iranians understood from the beginning that the open strait meant it was entirely open.
The Iranian explanation is, no, there's nothing in that language that says we had to fully open it.
It just said we had to make our best effort to make sure there was safe passage.
And the safest way to take your cargo in and out
is right along the Iranian coast.
It's also why very experienced diplomats, especially diplomats who have dealt with Iran in the past, make sure that the wording of international agreements is as bulletproof as a contract would be.
But in this case, we don't have people who have negotiated with Iran before on this kind of issue involved in the talks.
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