Following opposition accusations based on IEA report, the organization says its report had only mentioned Albania as a temporary destination for an Iranian oil tanker, which eventually unloaded its cargo elsewhere.
TIRANA, May 12 – The International Energy Agency, IEA, has denied claims made from the Albanian opposition that Albania broke an international embargo on Iran oil imports recently.
“The IEA did not suggest that Albania broke sanctions on Iran and any report that says otherwise needs to run a correction,” IEA spokeswoman Magdalena Sanocka said in a statement.
She said IEA report had only mentioned Albania as a temporary destination for an Iranian oil tanker, which eventually unloaded its cargo elsewhere.
Former Prime Minister Sali Berisha had earlier in the week declared in parliament the current government had broken the embargo and asked for a parliamentary investigative commission to check his claims that Prime Minister Edi Rama’s government had imported oil from Iran in a break of the UN-imposed embargo.
The IEA is an autonomous intergovernmental organization establi-shed in the framework of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD.
The parliamentary session turned into a hot political debate. In response Rama said that it was Berisha’s cabinet a year ago that was importing oil from Iran.
Albania’s opposition has been sending a barrage of accusations against the eight-month-old Socialist government which came to power last year with an overwhelming majority after Berisha’s eight-year rule.
