Five Iran tankers sailing to Venezuela amid US pressure tactics
DUBAI (AP):
FIVE IRANIAN tankers, likely carrying at least $45.5 million worth of gasolene and similar products, are now sailing to Venezuela, part of a wider deal between the two US-sanctioned nations amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington.
The tankers’ voyage came after Venezuela’s socialist leader, Nicolás Maduro, already turned to Iran for help in flying in chemicals needed at an ageing refinery amid a gasolene shortage, a symptom of the wider economic and political chaos gripping Latin America’s one-time largest oil producer.
For Iran, the tankers represent a way to bring money into its cashstarved Shiite theocracy and put its own pressure on the US, which, under President Donald Trump, has pursued maximalist campaigns against both nations.
But the strategy invites the chance of a renewed confrontation between the Islamic Republic and America both in the Persian Gulf, which saw a series of escalating incidents often involving the oil industry last year, and wider afield.
“This is like a new one for everyone,”said Captain Ranjith Raja, an analyst who tracks oil shipments by sea at the data firm Refinitiv, of the gasoline shipments. “We haven’t seen anything like this before.”
As news about the tankers spread, an Iranian news agency called Nour, believed to have ties to the country’s Supreme National Security Council, published an item on its website early Saturday trying to link a US military exercise in the Caribbean to the tankers. That council includes members of Iran’s civilian government, its military and its paramilitary, hardline Revolutionary Guard.
DANGEROUS RISK
“If the United States, like pirates, intends to create insecurity on international highways, it will take a dangerous risk that will certainly not go unnoticed,” the agency warned in its brief report.
It remains unclear how the US will respond to the tankers. On Thursday, the US Treasury, State Department and Coast Guard issued an advisory warning the maritime industry of illegal shipping and sanctions-dodging tactics by countries, including Iran.
The advisory repeated an earlier promise of up to $15 million for information disrupting the Guard’s finances. It also warned anyone “knowingly engaged in a significant transaction for the purchase, acquisition, sale, transport or marketing of petroleum” faced US sanctions.
US Army Major Rob Lodewick, a Pentagon spokesman, declined to comment on the Iranian vessels. He referred questions to the State Department, which did not immediately respond.