Tehran: Iran said on Monday it is ready to ship more fuel to Lebanon if needed, a day after the leader of Lebanon’s Iran-aligned Hezbollah group said more vessels carrying Iranian fuel would sail soon to help ease the country’s fuel shortage.
“We sell our oil and its products at the request of our friends and clients. Iran is ready to send fuel again to Lebanon if needed,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh said in an online weekly news conference.
On Sunday Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah said the first vessel shipping Iranian fuel to Lebanon, which last Thursday the group announced was about to leave Iran, had already sailed.
Iranian fuel shipments to Lebanon to help ease a crippling fuel shortage were all purchased by a group of Lebanese Shi’ite businessmen, Iran’s semi-official Nournews said on Thursday.
Hezbollah’s foes in Lebanon have warned of dire consequences from the move, saying it risked sanctions being imposed on a country whose economy has been in meltdown for nearly two years.
US sanctions on Iran’s oil exports, reimposed in 2018 when then-President Donald Trump exited Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with six powers, aim to cut its crude sales to zero.
Hezbollah, founded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982, has also been targeted by U.S. sanctions.
Nasrallah insisted that the group was not trying to step in and replace the state by purchasing the fuel.
“We are not taking the place of the state, nor are we an alternative to companies that import fuel,” he said in a speech to supporters without elaborating on how the shipments would enter the country.
The arrival of the Iranian fuel would mark a new phase in the financial crisis, which the Lebanese state and its ruling factions – including Hezbollah – have failed to tackle even as fuel has run dry and shortages have prompted deadly violence.
The US ambassador to Lebanon, Dorothy Shea, said on Thursday that Lebanon didn’t need Iranian tankers, citing “a whole bunch” of fuel ships off the coast waiting to unload.
The United States was in talks with Egypt and Jordan to help find solutions to Lebanon’s fuel and energy needs, she said, speaking hours after Hezbollah said it was arranging the shipments. — Reuters
