Iran has threatened the United States over its oil shipments to Venezuela.
In a letter written to the United Nations chief Antonio Guterres on Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif warned against “America’s movements in deploying its navy to the Caribbean.” Tehran believes that action will disrupt its oil supplies to the Latin American country.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi boasted of a “quick and decisive response” if Washington tried to stop oil trade between the two countries. The Iranian shipments are a clear violation of the U.S. sanctions place on both Iran and Venezuela.
President Donald Trump reinstated sanctions on the Iranian regime after he withdrew the U.S. from the Obama-era nuclear deal in May 2018. The following year, Washington imposed sweeping sanctions on Iran’s oil, shipping and banking sectors, cutting the most significant source of revenue for the Shia-Islamic regime, the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism.
Europe-based Radio Farda reported the latest Iranian threats:
Iran’s foreign minister on Sunday warned the US against deploying its navy in the Caribbean to disrupt Iranian fuel shipments to Venezuela.In a letter to United Nations chief Antonio Guterres, Mohammad Javad Zarif warned against “America’s movements in deploying its navy to the Caribbean in order to intervene and create disruption in (the) transfer of Iran’s fuel to Venezuela.”He said that any such action would be “illegal and a form of piracy,” according to a foreign ministry statement.Zarif added that the US would be responsible for “the consequences of any illegal measure.” (…)Elliot Abrams, the State Department’s Venezuela envoy, has alleged that Caracas is paying Iran in gold to restore its troubled oil sector.The US has imposed unilateral sanctions aimed at ending oil exports by both Iran and Venezuela, both major crude producers.Zarif’s deputy has summoned the Swiss ambassador, who represents Washington’s interests in Tehran, to communicate Iran’s “serious warning”.
The Trump administration also imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s socialist regime in January 2019, after President Nicolas Maduro refused to step down after repeatedly staging fraudulent elections. The Latin American nation possesses the world’s largest reserves of petroleum and natural gas, but 18-years of Socialist rule have wrecked the country’s oil sector and plunged its people into poverty. In March, the U.S. charged the Venezuelan dictators and his top associates with drug trafficking and posted a $15 million reward for his capture.
Since Hugo Chávez and his Socialist thugs came to power in 2002, they have sought deeper ties with the Mullah regime in Tehran. Maduro continued that policy after he took the reins of power following Chávez’s death seven years ago. This alliance has made the Latin American country a hub for Hezbollah, Iran’s leading foreign proxy terrorist group.
“We’re concerned that Maduro has extended safe harbor to a number of terrorist groups,” including “supporters and sympathizers of Hezbollah,” Nathan Sales, the coordinator for counterterrorism at the U.S. State Department, said in January.
The oil trade is at the center of this evil nexus between Iranian Islamists and Venezuelan Socialists. Last month, Maduro named Hezbollah-linked drug kingpin Tareck El Aissami as the country’s oil minister. Aissami is on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) “list of 10 most wanted fugitives,” the Associated Press confirmed.
The Iranian threats come at the time when the Shia Islamic regime is on the warpath with the United States. In January, Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei declared jihad on the U.S., a religious war that obliges all Muslims to take up arms. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has backed that call urging “all resistance fighters worldwide” to join the anti-American jihad. Iran-backed terror militia has stepped up their attacks on American and allied troops since a U.S. airstrike killed Qassem Soleimani, the chief of Iran’s elite Quds Force, regime’s international terrorist arm. Soleimani was personally responsible for the deaths of at least 600 American service members in Iraq, and was planning an attack on U.S. diplomatic mission at the time of the strike, official U.S. sources disclosed.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo: ‘Iran needs to be held accountable’
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