Industry and Energy

Home page

Industry and Energy

Iran stops refuelling Western planesâ€Ž

13 April 2011 14:47 (UTC +04:00)

Baku - APA-Economics. Iran has stopped refuelling "western passenger planes" since Europe-bound Iranian commercial planes were refused fuelling there, the first vice-president was quoted as saying in the governmental Iran newspaper today, Herald Sun reported.

"Recently fuel supply for Iranian passenger planes flying to Europe was stopped," Mohammed Reza Rahimi said.

"Iran decided immediately to strike back and banned supply of fuel to Western passenger planes landing in Iran," Rahimi added without specifying when the decision by the Islamic republic was implemented and which companies were targeted.

The decision by European oil companies was apparently taken in support of Western sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme, even though sanctions adopted by the European Union do not include such measures.

Unilateral sanctions imposed by the US, however, target gasoline and jet fuel supplies to Iran.

A number of European oil companies stopped refuelling Iranian planes six months ago and in March France’s Total and Austria’s OMV followed suit.

European diplomats and western oil experts in Tehran, speaking under the condition of anonymity, said US pressure was behind the action taken by the major oil companies.

Iranian commercial planes flights to Europe continue to operate by making a stopover in some European airports, notably Prague and Budapest, where Russian companies still refuel them.

Western sanctions adopted in July 2010 toughen existing United Nations sanctions.

The Islamic republic is under four sets of UN Security Council sanctions over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment.

Their main objection is to Iran’s uranium enrichment programme, which can produce either fuel for a nuclear reactor or the fissile material for an atomic warhead.