The head of the Lebanese “Future Movement”, Saad Hariri, said Thursday that “Hezbollah will not obtain a visa to hand Lebanon over to Iranian influence.”

This came in a tweet via his Twitter account, hours after the Lebanese Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah announced that the first Iranian fuel ship was on its way to his country.

Hariri asked: “Is what we heard this morning (Nasrallah’s statements) about the arrival of Iranian ships a good news for the Lebanese, or a dangerous announcement that Lebanon will be plunged into internal and external conflicts?”

He added, “Hezbollah can obtain a visa of collusion with the Covenant (the era of the country’s President Michel Aoun), but it will not obtain from the majority of the Lebanese a transit permit to hand Lebanon over to Iranian influence.”

He explained, “The party knows that the Iranian support ships will bring additional risks and penalties to the Lebanese people, similar to the sanctions that Venezuela and other countries are subject to.”

He considered that Iran is obstructing the formation of the Lebanese government, asking: “Otherwise, how does the Iranian state allow itself to violate international laws and accept sending ships to Lebanon without the approval of the Lebanese government?”

The United States frequently imposes sanctions against Iranian entities and personalities or deal with the regime in Tehran.

In May 2018, the United States reimposed sanctions on Tehran, after it withdrew from an international agreement on Tehran’s nuclear program.

Since then, Iran’s oil production has fallen to less than half a million barrels per day, from about 3.5 million before the sanctions were imposed.

There was no immediate comment from “Hezbollah” on Hariri’s statements, but Nasrallah said in his speech, Thursday, that “Iran has never interfered in the formation or disruption of any government in Lebanon, but there are external parties that do,” without naming them.

On August 11, the Central Bank of Lebanon decided to issue fuel import credits at the market exchange rate, where the price of the dollar exceeds 20,000 pounds, after it was adopting the price of 3900 pounds to the dollar to import it.

The Central Bank’s decision means a complete lifting of fuel subsidies, which was met with rejection by the caretaker government and sparked widespread popular protests.

For months, Lebanon has been witnessing a shortage of fuel, medicine and other basic commodities, due to the lack of foreign exchange that the Central Bank used to secure for the country’s imports of basic commodities.