DUBAI, June 12 (Reuters) – Iranian state media said on Sunday that Argentinian authorities have impounded a Boeing 747 plane whose original owner, Iran‘s Mahan Air, was sold to a Venezuelan airline a year ago.
There was no official confirmation of the reports.
“The ownership of the aircraft was transferred a year ago and it was sold to a Venezuelan company,” Mahan’s spokesperson Amir Hossein Zolanvari told the official news agency IRNA. Zolanvari did not name the Venezuelan company.
It was not immediately clear if the plane was on a list of Iranian aircraft under U.S. sanctions. Mahan Air has been under U.S sanctions since 2011 for its support for Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.
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Iran and Venezuela, which are both under U.S. sanctions, have close ties. The two countries on Saturday signed a 20-year cooperation plan.
(Reporting by Dubai NewsroomEditing by Elaine Hardcastle and Frances Kerry)
