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Hello and welcome to News Hour from the BBC World Service.

Coming to you live from London, I'm Paul Henley.

Later on in the programme, we'll hear from the lead vocalist of Iron Maiden on the future of heavy metal.

And this.

The appeal of a WhatsApp group in which you are only allowed to whistle. This is News Our welcome.

Now, the fact that there have been new clashes between Iran and the US in the Strait of Hormuz

would seem to indicate a return to hostilities in the war America and Israel started on

the 28th of February. But although Iran says what's happening there amounts to a violation of the ceasefire, the U.S. sees things differently.

In the past hour, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in a White House briefing that U.S. operations in the Strait of Hormuz were purely defensive.

This is not an offensive operation. This is a defensive operation.

And what that means is very simple. There's no shooting unless we're shot at first. We're not attacking them. But if they are attacking us, so they're attacking a ship, you need to respond to that. You're not going to let some fastboat come up on a ship and shoot it up. We're going to respond to it. And we've been successful at it. I don't know what the exact number is, but I know a number of those fast boats have now been targeted. And we'll continue to be, if they pose a threat to our forces, we'll shoot down drones, we'll shoot down missiles, but it's defensive in nature. This is defensive. So if you hear stories about attacks and launching, of firing back and forth, it's not back and forth. We are only responding if attacked first.

This is a defensive operation, and that's what's occurring here.

Speaking at an event in the Oval Office a short while ago,

President Trump repeated his position that the U.S. was accomplishing its objectives.

Iran wants to make a deal.

What I don't like about Iran is they'll talk to me with such great respect,

and then they'll go on television, they'll say,

we did not speak to the president.

We did not.

I just spoke to, we did not speak to the president.

So they play games, but let me just tell you, they want to make a deal. And who wouldn't?

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