BEIRUT (AP) – Hezbollah leader says on Monday the first Iranian oil tanker to Lebanon has reached the Syrian port and diesel will be sent to Lebanon by truck this week.
The arrival of the tank comes about a month after Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah announced that the group would start importing oil from Iran to address the oil crisis facing Lebanon for several months.
The betrayal, organized by an Iranian-backed group, violates U.S. sanctions imposed on Tehran after former President Donald Trump ousted the United States from a nuclear weapons deal between Iran and international powers three years ago.
The arrival of the Iranian tank carrying oil to Lebanon comes just days after the new government was formed at the end of the 13-month term.
Nasrallah said in a televised address on Monday night that the group had decided to set up a port in Syria to avoid embarrassing Lebanon and putting Lebanon at risk.
Syria, another US-controlled country, has been relying on oil from its powerful ally Iran, which has sent thousands of Iranian-backed militants, including Hezbollah members, to support President Bashar Assad’s troops in the 10-year war there.
Nasrallah said the tank arrived at the Banias port in Syria earlier this week and the process of unloading oil began the same day. He added that the Syrian government had mobilized several vehicles to take the diesel to the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek by Thursday.
Nasrallah said three more diesel tanks and one fuel tanker would arrive in the coming weeks.
He said diesel should be donated for a month to organizations including public hospitals, nursing homes, orphanages, water points and the Lebanese Red Cross. Nasrallah added that some of the cheapest sources of fuel are private hospitals, the pharmaceutical and serum industries, bakeries and food retailers.
Nasrallah said Hezbollah would provide fuel to the country’s communications facilities. “We are not competing (with the government) but we want to add fuel to the market,” he said.