Venezuela's defense minister said Wednesday that planes and ships from the nation's armed forces will escort Iranian tankers arriving with fuel to the gasoline-starved country in case of any US aggression.
Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lpez said Venezuela's navy and air force will welcome the five Iranian tankers, seeing them through the nation's maritime territory and into port.
He compared the fuel tankers to humanitarian aid that China and Russia have sent to help Venezuela combat the new coronavirus pandemic.
A force of US vessels, including Navy destroyers and other combat ships, patrol the Caribbean on what US officials call a drug interdiction mission. Venezuelan officials paint them as a threat, but US officials have not announced any plans to intercept the Iranian tankers, or threatened to try that. Both countries have been hit with U.S. economic sanctions.
Venezuela's ambassador to the United Nations, Samuel Moncada, also lashed out at the U.S., saying any attempt to stop the tankers would be illegal.
Forbidding those boats from reaching their destination would thus constitute a crime against humanity, Moncada said at a U.N. Security Council meeting to discuss recent turmoil in Venezuela.
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The five Iranian tankers now on the high seas are expected to start arriving to Venezuela in the coming days. They are carrying gasoline to help alleviate days-long lines at service stations even in Caracas, which had normally been immune to shortages as the capital and seat of political power.
Earlier Wednesday, Iran's ambassador to Venezuela defended broadening trade relations between the two nations, which includes the five tankers, as their right to trade freely.
International conventions protect the expanding ties between the two US-sanctioned nations, Ambassador Hojjatollah Soltani said.
This relationship between Iran and Venezuela doesn't threaten anybody. It's not a danger to anyone," Soltani said in a meeting with reporters at the Iranian Embassy in Caracas.
In addition to sending the tankers, Iran has flown in shipments of a chemical needed to restart an aging Venezuelan oil refinery with the goal of producing gasoline.
While Venezuela sits atop the world's largest oil reserves, its oil production has plummeted in the last two decades, which critics blame on corruption and mismanagement under socialist rule. Recent U.S. sanctions designed to force