Maduro thanks Iran as second oil tanker arrives in Venezuelan waters

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro took to Twitter on Monday morning to thank Iran as a second oil tanker arrived in Venezuelan waters in defiance of United States sanctions.

Five Iranian tankers carrying 1.5 million barrels of fuel set off for Venezuela in March and April. The first arrived in Venezuelan waters on Sunday, while the second arrived early on Monday, according to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) affiliated Tasnim news agency. 

“The end of Ramadan brings us the arrival of the FORTUNE ship, a sign of the solidarity of the Islamic people of Iran with Venezuela. In times where the supremacist empire seeks to impose its rule by force, only the brotherhood of free peoples will save us," Maduro said.

Though Venezuela sits on the world’s largest proven oil reserve, it is in desperate need of refined fuel, with long queues for petrol being reported even in the capital Caracas. Decades of government mismanagement and corruption coupled with the American sanctions that seek to oust Maduro from the presidency have caused economic havoc in the country, compelling millions to flee abroad.

The US has expressed defiance in its application of the sanctions despite their devastating impact.

“Our maximum pressure campaign, which includes financial & economic sanctions, will continue until Maduro’s tyrannical hold ends,” the US National Security Council said in a tweet. “The humanitarian & economic crisis endured by Venezuelans is the fault of 1 person–Maduro.”

Washington has piled similarly substantial economic pressure on Iran, using sanctions that have mostly taken aim at the country's once lucrative energy sales. Since the US withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal two years ago, Tehran's oil exports have shrunk from 2.8 million barrels per day (bpd) to to less than 300,000 bpd. In a bid to bolster its faltering economy, Iran has sought other destinations for its oil and petroleum based derivate, including Venezuela.

Fuel-related shipments between the two OPEC allies have previously stoked American ire, with Washington imposing sanctions on Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA after US officials said it sent about $50 million worth of fuel refining product to Iran between December 2010 and March 2011. The US continues to question the motives behind a strengthened relationship between its two far-flung adversaries.

“You have to ask yourself what interest Iran has in Venezuela,” said Admiral Craig Faller, head of US Southern Command, speaking at an event hosted by the Florida International University this week. “It is to gain a positional advantage in our neighbourhood as a way to counter US interests.”

Officials from both and Iran and Venezuela insist on the peaceful nature of their ties.

"This relationship between Iran and Venezuela doesn't threaten anybody. It's not a danger to anyone," Iran’s ambassador to Venezuela Hojjatollah Soltani said in a meeting with reporters at the Iranian Embassy in Caracas.

However, President Hassan Rouhani threatened on Saturday that the halt of Iranian tankers in the Caribbean or anywhere else in the world would provoke a like-for-like response from Tehran.

Precedent for such retaliation was set last summer, when the IRGC seized a British tanker in the international waters of the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation to Britain's impounding of a fuel export-laden Iranian tanker believed to have been bound for Syria.