Iran to Use Northern Sea Route to Send Aids to Gaza
News number: 890406134917:06 | 2010-06-27Social
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8904061349

TEHRAN (FNA)- A senior Iranian lawmaker announced that Tehran plans to
change the route for sending humanitarian aids to Gaza after it was obliged
to postpone the dispatch of its first aid ship due to Israel's tighter
restrictions and increased threats against Iranian aid convoys.

Member of the Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission
Mahmoud Ahmadi Biqash told FNA on Sunday that Tehran plans to send its aid
cargo through the Caspian sea in northern Iran, adding that the ship called
"Khazar" would leave Iran's northern port city of Bandar Anzali in the near
future.

"The ship will carry aids from Iran's Red Crescent Society and Imam Khomeini
Relief Foundation, including foods and medicine" for the besieged
Palestinians in Gaza, Biqash added.

He announced that four members of his commission as well as delegations from
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) of Iran's northern provinces of Gilan,
Mazandaran and Golestan and also a number of foreign students will be aboard
the ship.

The legislator said that the ship will reach the Mediterranean Sea and Gaza
through the Caspian Sea and the Volga if Russia issues the required
permission, adding that Moscow has unofficially Okayed the passage.

Biqash added that Iran would send 30 more aid ships to the Gaza Strip if the
first ship accomplishes its mission successfully.

The move will come after Iran's Red Crescent Society announced on Sunday
that it has postponed the dispatch of a ship, carrying humanitarian aids, to
the Gaza Strip due to the tighter restrictions imposed by the Zionist regime
of Israel against Gaza-bound aid cargos and the regime's threats that it
would intercept Iranian aid cargos.