[ad_1]
MUSCAT, Oman — Oman and Iran signed offers to develop two gasoline pipelines and an oil area alongside their maritime border, Oman’s power minister stated Saturday, lower than two weeks after Iran’s president visited the sultanate.
The go to by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Could 23 got here amid stalled worldwide talks to revive a deal on Tehran’s nuclear program, leaving the Islamic Republic underneath sanctions.
On the time, the official Oman Information Company reported that the nations had signed memoranda of understanding regarding oil and gasoline, however didn’t present particulars.
On Saturday, the company quoted Omani power minister Mohammed al-Rumhi as saying the agreements had been “associated to the event of the 2 gasoline pipeline tasks linking the 2 nations and the Hengam oil area.”
A deal was reached about twenty years in the past to permit Iran to provide Oman with gasoline, however the undertaking by no means materialized.
Sanctions on Iran sophisticated efforts to execute that undertaking, and will additionally make it troublesome to implement the brand new deal.
Illustrative: This March 16, 2019 file picture reveals a pure gasoline refinery on the South Pars gasoline area on the northern coast of the Persian Gulf, in Asaluyeh, Iran. (AP Picture/Vahid Salemi, File)
The Hengam oil area is situated within the strategic Strait of Hormuz close to the United Arab Emirates.
Oman has shut political and financial ties with Iran and performed a mediating function between Tehran and Washington within the build-up to the unique nuclear deal in 2015.
Cease-start talks started in April final 12 months to revive the deal, after the US unilaterally withdrew from it in 2018 and reimposed biting sanctions on Iran, prompting Tehran to roll again its commitments.
The 2015 settlement gave Iran aid from crippling financial sanctions in trade for curbs on its nuclear actions.
The sultanate, which faces Iran throughout the Gulf of Oman, endured financial ache throughout the pandemic, with its GDP dropping 6.4 % in 2020 and authorities debt hovering.
It noticed uncommon protests over excessive unemployment and lay-offs final 12 months.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi speaks earlier than departing Tehran’s Mehrabad airport for a visit to Oman, Could, 23, 2022. (AP Picture/Vahid Salemi)
Raisi’s go to to Oman was his second to a Gulf nation since he took workplace in August 2021.
He visited Qatar in February, the place he met Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani and took half in a convention of gasoline exporting nations.
[ad_2]
Source link
