 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we are going to talk with Prabir Pulkai about the latest developments in the US-Iran standoff. Hello Prabir. So Prabir, let's begin with the question of sanctions that are going to be extended to other countries which includes India and China. We all know that this has been building up for some time and we have had a whole set of measures. Primarily by the United States when they withdrew from the nuclear agreement and then a whole bunch of sanctions which are imposed on Iran which at the moment is going to bite India as well because the argument is that eight countries which were given exemption, the exemption will expire on May 2 after which it will not be extended. China has already said that it will not accept US sanctions. It considers it as an abrogation of sovereignty of countries outside international law which in any case is a lateral sanction. India has been relatively muted on what it is going to do and some of those people have already said that they are looking at alternative arrangements. They should be able to make it. No problems for India but it means something like 2,000 to 3,000 crores of additional money that such a switch would cost. What is I think right now important is two signals, very faint signals. One shouldn't make too much out of it coming both from the United States as also from Iran. Iran has said, the foreign minister is the US because of United Nations and some other conferences he is attending over there. He has said that they would release those who are in prison essentially on Spanish charges for the American citizens. They would release them and that is at least some sign that they have made. But at the same time they have said they will release them provided. The US also drops charges against people who they are either pursuing legally on the basis of violation of international sanctions which as we know are really unilateral sanctions and those who are in US prisons also because of sanctions, busting. So it's a quid pro quo. It's not a new lateral proposal that Iran has made. On the other hand, Trump has made or Trump administration has given some indication that those who are falling foul post May 2nd of the US sanctions can have ramped down as it were by making the agreement prior to May 2nd, we still have about 5-6 days to go, that they could have an agreement prior to May 2nd and then they could continue then as a continuation of the agreement to draw this down. But this is still very nebulous, both sides very nebulous. So we have yet to see whether it will actually bear fruit or not. In this essentially a trade war or an economic war that has been put on Iran where we can actually see not just one country but every other country has been affected. I would say it's not really a trade war. If we look at it, the indications are there are sections in the US administration which wants to attack Iran. And their basic issue therefore is not simply economic sanctions. The fact that as you said earlier, they have put or they have designated the Republican guards which are essentially part of Iran's armed forces as a terrorist organization. This happened no other location that I can think of where a legitimate part of a government or its armed forces have been designated as terrorist which means effectively under their something in the US they have passed which is the president has the right to strike against a terrorist entity without the sanction of the Senate of the Congress. What it means is that with this designation the president of the United States namely Trump can declare war on Iran by claiming they are only fighting against a terrorist organization which is a part of Iran's forces. And so to be or to a lot of people it look like that US was ratcheting up the shall we say the screws with the idea of getting into a possible war scenario and let's not forget economic sanctions of this kind is a declaration of war. It's no less when you say all countries are prevented from training with you against pain of US sanctions. Effectively you are saying that you are declaring economic war which has been agreed in international law as a part of aggression. So I think it would be wrong to think of this is purely as an economic set of measures. I think inherent in this is ratcheting it up to war and that is the threat that is really there. Under shall we say the guiding hand of Bibi Netanyahu Pompeo and Bolton is the US actually creating conditions for a war against Iran which will be much more damaging to the world to the region and possibly to the entire economic order in the world because essentially the states of Hormuz get closed or Iran's oil drops out of the market. It's a huge hit that the world economy would take. I think a very significant part of the world's oil passes to the states of Hormuz because it will affect China, India, South Korea, Japan much more. So these are extremely dangerous shall we say steps that are being thought or being taken by the United States and currently just these two small shall we say steps, baby steps would be too strong a word to put these as baby steps. I would say small little thawing that might be there is a welcome sign and I hope the United States and this is really the United States backs away from what seems to be a collision course and looking for war. Yeah, let's hope that that works out very well because we have seen how belligerent it can be under the Trump administration and the Bolton doctrine. So that's it for today. Do subscribe and like our channel and share our videos. Thank you.