Kremlin offers Iran sanction-free oil route
Russia has offered to help Iran to skirt US sanctions by allowing it to transport crude oil through ports in Crimea, in a further sign of growing ties between Moscow and Tehran.
Iran has previously sent oil deliveries to Syria and Turkey through the Suez Canal. That route has become problematic, according to Iran and Syria, since President Donald Trump pulled out of a nuclear deal with Tehran and imposed economic sanctions.
Countries that purchase Iranian oil or assist its shipment risk US economic penalties. A tanker carrying Iranian oil to Syria was detained last month by the Egyptian authorities as it travelled through the Suez Canal, according to Iranian state media. Cairo denied the reports and insisted that the waterway remained open to Iranian vessels.
Georgy Muradov, the Kremlin’s representative in Crimea, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014, announced the offer. ‘‘Iran can use our shipping capabilities and transport oil through the Volga-Don canal, via Crimea, to the Black Sea,’’ he said. ‘‘Mutual interest in cooperation between Iran and Crimea is growing, especially considering the anti-Iranian policies of the United States.’’
The Volga-Don canal is 101km long and is part of a system of inland waterways that link the Caspian Sea to the world’s oceans via the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.
Tehran has not publicly responded to the Russian offer, but the prospect of an alternative supply route could provide valuable breathing space for its oil industry. The US sanctions, which were imposed in November, four months after Trump withdrew from the Obamaera nuclear deal, have sent Iranian oil exports tumbling from about 2.5 million barrels a day to half a million, according to analysts.
Turkey said in May that it was reluctantly halting imports of Iranian oil to comply with US sanctions. Aside from Syria, Iran also ships oil eastwards to China, its only other known customer.
The US has so far been reluctant to impose punitive sanctions on China, the biggest importer of Iranian oil, over fears that the move could worsen a trade rift between the two countries.
Last month British Marines and the port authorities in Gibraltar seized a supertanker that was suspected to be carrying crude oil from Iran to Syria in violation of European Union sanctions against the Assad regime. The vessel, Grace 1, was released after a five-week standoff. Iran said on Tuesday that it had sold the 2.1 million barrels of crude oil that the supertanker was carrying to an unnamed buyer.
The annexation of Crimea led to US economic sanctions, plunging relations between Moscow and Washington to their lowest point since the end of the Cold War. In contrast, mutual animosity towards the US has resulted in closer ties between Iran and Russia.
Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi, the Iranian naval commander, said last month that his forces would hold joint military exercises with Russia by the end of the year. The drills are expected to be held in the northern Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Oman.
The drills were announced after the US said that it had evidence that proved Iran was behind limpet mine attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf in May and June. Washington later carried out a secret cyberattack against an Iranian database used to plot covert attacks on shipping in the Gulf, The New York Times reported this week.
– The Times