Iran Stops Fuel Delivery, Afghanistan Says, and Prices Are Rising

[Casino67]

NYTimes.com:

KABUL, Afghanistan — Government officials expressed alarm on Wednesday about what they described as Iran’s unexplained ban on fuel exports to Afghanistan, asserting that at least 1,400 loaded tankers were parked on Iran’s side of three border crossings.

Abdul Karim Barahwe, the governor of Nimroz Province in western Afghanistan, said the Iranian authorities had started halting tankers bound for Afghanistan about 10 days ago. The effect is driving up fuel prices just as winter is setting in.

“We really don’t know the exact cause of the ban; Iran doesn’t officially say the cause of the ban,” he said. Now, he said, both the Interior and Commerce Ministries, as well as President Hamid Karzai’s office, “are trying to sort out this problem with Iran.”

The governor said that tankers full of fuel were backed up at the border crossings of Nimroz, Farah and Islam Qala.

There has been no word in Iran about a ban on Afghanistan-bound fuel. The restriction may reflect Iran’s own energy problems, caused in part by Western sanctions on the country over its nuclear program, as well as a sharp increase in Iranian fuel prices caused by a government phase-out of subsidies that began this month. Or it could represent an effort to retaliate against the United States for the sanctions, even though the fuel is not supposed to be supporting the American war effort.