TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian legislators are studying a plan to reciprocate any US move to hijack and seize Iranian fuel supplies to Venezuela after an American judge issued a warrant for the seizure of more than 1 million barrels of gasoline being shipped by Tehran to Venezuela, a senior MP said.
“The US government has started a gambling by the puppetry show of a US federal judge who has ordered the seizure of the Iranian tankers which is a piracy and against the international laws,” a senior member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Ebrahim Rezayee, told FNA on Tuesday.
He said that one of Iran’s solutions to the problem is reciprocation as was displayed in the case of the British seizure of Iran’s Grace one tanker, when Iran also seized the British oil tanker, Stena Impero on July 19, 2019, for numerous violations of international maritime regulations when it was passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
The vessel was impounded weeks after the British naval forces unlawfully seized Iranian-owned supertanker Grace 1 and its cargo of 2.1 million barrels of oil in the Strait of Gibraltar. Both ships were freed later.
“Based on the plan, any measure by the US against the Iranian tankers or ships in any part of the world will face a rapid and appropriate response by the Islamic Republic,” Rezayee underlined.
His comments came after US District Judge James E. Boasberg signed the warrant Thursday after authorities filed a complaint the night before in the District of Columbia alleging nearly 1.2 million barrels of Persian gasoline on the Bella, the Bering, the Pandi and the Luna are subject to forfeiture as the sale of their cargo is intended to benefit sanctioned Iranian entities.
Last month, five Iranian oil tankers carrying millions of barrels of gasoline and components entered the ports of the fuel-starved Venezuela and are now on their way back to Iran.
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