Posted on 05/02/2020 11:55:33 PM PDT by hassan.mahmoud
By: Hassan.Mahmoudi
Iran and Venezuela, both engulfed with similar crises, have economic and trade relationship since the time of Iran’s former president, Mahmood Ahmadi-Nezhad.
On Thursday, May 1, Elliot Abrams, the head of Venezuela’s affairs in the US government said that during this week Iran has had many more flights to this country:
"Our assumption is that those planes that come from Iran are bringing things for the oil industry, and they return full of gold as a form of payment," El Politico quoted Elliot Abrams, the U.S. Special manager for Venezuela as saying.
On April 30, 2020, the Bloomberg news agency wrote: “Government officials piled some 9 tons of gold -- an amount equal to about $500 million -- on Tehran-bound jets this month as payment for Iran’s assistance in reviving Venezuela’s crippled gasoline refineries.”
On the same day, US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo warned that many airplanes belonging to the Mahan Air, Iranian airliner, have been seen in Venezuela. On last Wednesday Pompeo had said that the flights have to stop and the countries should try to prevent Mahan Air from using their sky the same as many countries abiding by the US sanctions against Iran have prevented this airliner from landing in their airports.
As AP has reported, Iran is transferring both specialists and equipment to rebuild the crippled Venezuelan refineries by Mahan Air.
On Thursday, April 23, the second flight of Mahan Air landed in a western Venezuelan city having Iran’s refinery specialists and chemicals needed for producing gasoline on board. Then the number of flights surged. The route of that specific flight was shown at “Flight Radar 24” the website that follows international flights. The landing airport was near The Paraguaná Refinery Complex one of the biggest refineries of the world.
Mahan Air is controlled by the Qods Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) which manages and conducts IRGC’s terrorist missions abroad. The Qods Force, which was formerly under the command of Qasim Soleimani is now commanded by his successor General Gha’ani and acts under the supervision of the Supreme Leader, Khamenei.
Mahan Air is under the sanctions of US treasury since 2011.
In November 2019, the Italian government announced that Mahan Air flights to this country are stopped. As the Italian newspaper, La Stampa wrote, Italy, as well as France and Germany, have stopped Mahan Air flights to their countries.
During the coronavirus crisis, while all international airliners canceled all their flights to Wuhan City in China, the center of the virus spread, Mahan Air flights transported passengers to this city and other Chinese cities which caused the spread of the virus first in the City of Qom and then all around Iran.
Reports indicate that Mahan Air has had 18 flights from Iran to China and 16 flights from China to Iran from February 1, 2020, till March 5, 2020, bringing the number of flights to a minimum of 34.
Mahan Air’s main mission is to circumambulate the sanctions. The enterprise currently owns 62 airplanes which have trade flights to 41 destinations in 24 countries on three continents. The main destinations are in Asian, African, and South American countries, where exists enterprises to meet this aim.
The higher-ranks of Mahan Air is the former IRGC members who had served under the command of Qasim Soleimani during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. Hamid Arabnezhad, the CEO of Mahan Air is a senior member of IRGC.
Mahan Air’s flights to Venezuela, transferring a part of the assets of the people of Iran to this country comes at a time when since the onset of the coronavirus crisis, the Iranian regime constantly says that it doesn’t have enough financial resources to confront the virus and askes for 5 billion dollars support from the IMF.
By revealing these flights, it makes it all clear that Khamenei is allocating the wealth of the people of Iran to spread its terror infiltration in other countries. Despite the deplorable conditions that Iranians are sunk in, Khamenei is offering the wealth and resources of the people to the countries that he has interests in or uses them to expand his regime’s influence and implement his terror operations in other countries, instead of using the financial resources of the bodies under his control to help the people who are suffering from the critical condition that has emanated from the spread of coronavirus in the country.
Hassan Mahmoudi, social analyst, researcher, is an independent observer and commentator of Middle Eastern and Iranian affairs.
What makes them think Venezuela has any gold at all?
500 million worth of Gold already flown out of Venezuela to Iran. Maybe that is the proof that the Gold does exist. Meanwhile in other news: The Earth has been found to have a moon which orbits the Earth. Speculation is that the tides of the ocean may be linked to the movements of the moon in relation to the Earth. Getting serious for a moment..Take a look at which governments are friends with Iran and you will see which governments are the foes of the USA.
Sounds like the mullahs are going to make a break for it
This is clearly propaganda. Take it with a grain of salt. One wonders what Venezuela would have been saving 500,000,000 dollars worth of gold for, if they had had it. Why would they be trying to revive their oil industry when the price of oil on the international market is negative? Why is trading oil refining equipment for gold the equivalent of trading away the wealth of the Iranian people?
Mahmoud the little Iranian propagandist?
He’s calling international arms shipments oil refinery rehab equioment
You’re at least “ two for two” this morning. ;)
I guess this means that Iran has run out of the Obama stash
The memory hole reminds us that Russia took most of the gold reserves under Chavez and at the time of his death. Under Chavez VN had something like 229 mobile oil rigs. In just two years, under sanctions from the US (Those rigs belonged to US Oil companies), the number of working rigs dropped to about 100. Most of the rig team leadership were executed along the way as the rigs died; those who lived did so by fleeing the country. Chavez run his oil production into the ground and lost the necessary expertise to keep it going. Iran imported over a half million rifles. Iran linked terrorists used VN as a staging grounds for reconnaissance to destroy American owned companies, kill America Citizens and attack Diplomatic Missions/personnel in the event of War with the USA (Iranian leadership has always threatened to attack all US Diplomatic Missions, American owned companies kill US Citizens in the event of conflict with the USA). Iranian and Russian Enforcement Units ensure continued Socialist Dictatorship solvency in charge of VN. Democrats from the USA LOVE VN Socialism....
The Memory hole reminds us (USA) that almost all of the Cocaine coming into Africa and into Europe/Russia comes from VN, as does the cocaine entering the US. The cocaine trade from VN is complicit with political leaders in the USA and every country in Europe and thus it will never stop.
So Venezuela is relying on Iranians to restore their oil refineries
Refining oil must be easier than I thought.
Oil dominates Venezuela’s economy, accounting for almost all of its export earnings. Its biggest customers have been the US, followed by India and China.
Now their big sales are basically India. And with the loss of a majority of the sales of the US and the cutback of China, just selling to India will not suffice. Almost everyone now that was in the mix with them, is oil sufficient or is trading oil faster than they are. They are competing with their customers. Can’t win that one.
rwood
So we have 2 countries, neither which has diplomatic relations to us, both that hate us, engaging in transactions. Which one of those countries decided to share their economic data and cargo manifests with us?
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