Venezuela-Iran pact: airplanes for guns
Venezuelan planes help Iran to import-export equipment banned by the UN. Iran send to Caracas security agents
(La Stampa, December 22, 2008)Tehran evade UN sanctions by exploiting the air Venezuelan airline under an agreement between Mahmud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez to strengthen the Iranian penetration in Latin America. The news is contained in some western intelligence memorandum on the impact
of Ahmadinejad agreements with several South American nations.
The pact between Tehran and Caracas, according to the memorandum that "La Stampa" has been able to consult, concerns about an exchange: Chavez allow Ahmadinejad to freely use its airliners and obtain military aid in exchange.
Iran is working airplanes company Conviasa along the commercial route Tehran-Damascus-Caracas for multiple purposes. First transfer scientific equipment to laboratories of the Center for Studies and Research of Syria in Damascus. In particular, it would be Cnc shipments of machinery, computers for control of missiles and equipment for the development of carriers, beginning with the implementation of engines. Shipments are made by industrial group "Shahid Baker (SBIG), in December 2006 included in the list of companies affected by the sanctions included in Resolution 1737 the UN Security Council because of the role played in developing the missile program of Iran . Just under that resolution Syria - like any other country - could not make purchases of missile technology from that company but the airline Conviasa allow you to carry out transactions evading controls.
The previous shipments to Syria worries the West because intelligence suggests that Tehran may have found thanks to the Caracas air secured by a
transport system by which to overcome problems encountered in increasing export of material prohibited as a result more stringent controls
implemented by the Turkish authorities. A few months ago, the customs services of Ankara intercepted 22 copies of these Cnc machines manufactured by Chinese "Shenyang Machine Tool" and intended to Iran from where they then, partly due to continue towards Syria.
It was after this episode that Ahmadinejad has asked to help Chavez, partly because relations with Ankara had already cracked following the railway in May 2007 when a train party from Iran and Syria in direct toppled to a fault Turkish territory leading to the discovery of a shipment of arms destined for Hezbollah, which sparked strong irritation in Turkey and, among other things, led the Iranian authorities to replace the commander of the Pasdaran Rahim Safavi with the successor Muhamed Jaaferi. Forced to find new ways to reach the territory to Damascus, Ahmadinejad thought that Venezuelan aircraft were the most simple and handy, Chavez has proved compliant, and in return received a substantial aid package: Iranian commitment to send instructors to Caracas for the secret police and intelligence services as witnessed by the recent arrival in the South American country of at least ten senior official of the Al Quds Force "of the Pasdaran. Chavez trainers for the Iranians are a useful tool to permit its security forces to be more effective against domestic opponents. Another element of the pact Tehran-Caracas is the availability of Conviasa in Iran to carry military equipment that companies linked to the Pasdaran can not buy freely on the market precisely because of UN sanctions.
The proliferation of these signals has led Western intelligence to closely monitor passengers and equipment traveling along the route Tehran-Damascus-Caracas coming to the conclusion that it is often intelligence officials, military officers and materials banned by the UN. Among the passengers on those flights were also officers of Syrian and Venezuelan who last July took part in the maneuvers of the Pasdaran. To validate the strategic decision to focus on Tehran to South America to break the international isolation because there said yesterday in Teheran by
Vice-President Parviz Davoudi on the "priority of promoting trade and industrial cooperation with the nations revolutionary." It dates back to last Thursday the opening in Tehran of the fair trade of the seven countries of the 'Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua and Dominican Republic) that challenge the sanctions imposed on Tehran against developing of nuclear energy.