President Maduro’s Envoy in Tehran:

Venezuelans Regard Iran a ‘Great Hero’

Date: 06 July 2020 - 22:15

News ID: ۸۰۳۴۲

TEHRAN (Dispatches) – The Venezuelan president’s special envoy said here Monday that the sanctions-busting arrival of Iranian fuel tankers in Venezuela last month was a celebration day for the people of South American country.
The Venezuela people consider the Iranian nation a "great hero”, Jorge Marquez told the Iranian president’s chief of staff Mahmoud Vaezi.
Five Iranian oil tankers - Petunia, Forest, Faxon, Clavel, and Fortune - carried 1.5 million barrels of gasoline and diesel fuel to Venezuela amid a U.S. economic blockade which had put the country in throes of a crisis.
Marquez submitted a written message of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro for delivery to his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani.
Maduro’s envoy praised Iran’s supports for Venezuela, saying relations between the two countries are very good, but Caracas seeks their further expansion.
The U.S. hegemony, he said, is common enemy of Iran and Venezuela which should be countered through unity.
U.S. federal prosecutors are reportedly seeking to seize four more tankers sailing toward Venezuela with gasoline supplied by Iran, the latest attempt to disrupt ever-closer trade ties between the two heavily sanctioned anti-American allies.
Alireza Miryousefi, a spokesman for the Iranian mission to the United Nations, said any attempt by the U.S. to prevent Iran’s lawful trading with any country of its choosing would be an act of "piracy, pure and simple.”
"This is a direct threat to international peace and security and in contravention of international law including the UN Charter,” he said in a statement last week.
Despite sitting atop the world’s largest crude reserves, Venezuela doesn’t produce enough domestically-refined gasoline and has seen its overall crude production plunge to the lowest in over seven decades amid the ongoing crisis and fallout from U.S. sanctions.
We are "two rebel nations, two revolutionary nations that will never kneel down before U.S. imperialism,” Maduro said in May as the first Iranian oil tanker arrived in Venezuela. "Venezuela has friends in this world, and brave friends at that,” he said.
The flotilla’s arrival angered the Trump administration, which struck back by sanctioning the five Iranian captains of the vessels.
The four tankers named the Bella, Bering, Pandi and Luna are currently transporting to Venezuela 1.1 million barrels of gasoline.

Last year, the Trump administration failed to stop a tanker carrying 2.1 million barrels of Iranian oil, the Adrian Darya formerly known as Grace 1, through blacklisting it and other measures.
The vessel was originally seized by the British Royal Marine commandos on suspicion being en route to Syria, but was released by Gibraltar. After a warrant was issued for the Adrian Darya, Brian Hook, the State Department’s top Iran official, sent emails to its captain saying the Trump administration was offering him several million dollars to steer the tanker to a country that would impound it on behalf of Washington. The oil was eventually sold to Syria.