Iran’s oil minister, Javab Owji, who led the visit of a high-level commission to Nicaragua, promised this Friday, May 6, to supply oil derivatives to the country, assuring Daniel Ortega that “together” they can “neutralize the aggressions and sanctions”.
“We forcefully condemn the unjust aggression of some powers and the intervention in the internal affairs of Nicaragua,” he stressed, while declaring that they were “friends and brothers” of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, three regimes considered hostile to the United States and who are singled out by the international community for perpetrating human rights violations.
During the official visit, the minister and Ortega signed a memorandum of understanding and alleged contracts in oil and agriculture, of which the official documents are still unknown. Owji said they would study the possibility of investing in the failed refinery. the Supreme Dream of Bolívar, a project of 4,000 million dollars devised in 2007 by the then president Hugo Chávez that was reduced to a storage plant in which 510 million dollars were invested.
Without specifying quantities or conditions on the agreement to supply oil to Nicaragua, the Iranian minister assured that they will make their “best efforts to guarantee the supply of fuel to the sister and friendly republic of Nicaragua.”
The senior official stated that once they have received the documentation related to the refinery “we will decide on the participation of our country in the continuation of this project.” “… We will do our best to be able to participate in that refinery and in future refineries in the country. We hope that a mixed, shared investment from Iran, Nicaragua and Venezuela can be made to complete that refinery,” he said.
Second High Level visit in six months
This is the second Iranian mission to visit Ortega and Rosario Murillo, since they assumed their fourth term in power without political competition after imprisoning their main opponents last year, actions that were condemned by the Organization of American States (OAS).
The first delegation was led by the Vice President for Economic Affairs Brother Mohsen Rezaí, who was present at the inauguration of Ortega and moved freely in the country, despite being circulated by Interpol for his responsibility in the worst attack in the history of Argentina, which left 84 dead in 1994.
On this occasion, the oil minister arrived in Nicaragua accompanied by representatives of the Iranian government in different areas such as agriculture and the sale of oil and gas, while Ortega and Murillo were accompanied by their son Laureano Ortega, their energy minister Salvador Mansell and by Francisco López, the FSLN treasurer, who is now presented in the official press as “minister for production and trade.”
Of all of them, the Iranian minister thanked Laureano Ortega, presidential advisor for investment promotion, for his support during the two-day work session in Nicaragua.
The Iranian congratulations come a day after the The New York Times revealed that Laureano Ortega Murillo, sought a “silent” rapprochement with Washington, focused on easing the sanctions imposed on the circle close to the regime. The publication claimed that “a high-ranking official from the US State Department was sent to Managua to meet with Laureano Ortega in March, but it never took place because the Ortegas apparently had regrets.”
Dictator proposes barter to avoid sanctions
Ortega stressed that bartering is “a modality that is still present” mainly to avoid “blockades, sanctions that are nothing more than aggressions by the empire and NATO – the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – which is part of the empire,” in relation to the United States.
“An alternative that the peoples have. They block the financial system, we cannot transfer the payment of a product that we are interested in bringing from Iran, but we can pay it with products that interest Iran and that we produce here in Nicaragua,” said Ortega.
The Iranian official added that his country’s policy is “to support the sovereignty, independence, freedom, and the right to self-determination of peoples and reject interventionism in the internal affairs of other peoples,” he said.
The senior Iranian official promised that 200,000 doses of the covid-19 vaccine, COVIran Barakat, will arrive in the country in the coming weeks, a promise that the regime announced on March 18. Iran’s support comes when Ortega is very isolated in the international community, which demands an end to the repression, the release of political prisoners and the return of democracy to Nicaragua. However, the dictator says that he is the victim of a campaign of interventionism. Insults the United States, the European Union, Canadaamong others, and is approaching Russia, China and Iran.
