Officials from the UAE’s two biggest airports on Monday said operations were progressing as normal despite reports that they were refusing to refuel passenger aircraft owned by Iranian operators.
“Dubai Airports confirms that all Iranian aircraft flying into and out of the airport are being refuelled as normal,” said an official statement provided by Dubai Airports on Monday evening.
Earlier, the Abu Dhabi Airports Company (ADAC) stated that refuelling operations were continuing at the UAE’s second-largest airport, and added that it so far had received no direction from the General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) to stop it from doing so.
Their comments came as a rebuttal to earlier reports from Iranian news agencies that the UAE had joined the UK and Germany in refusing to refuel Iranian planes.
Arabian Business was unable to obtain an official to comment on the issue from either the GCAA or Sharjah International Airport, the UAE’s third-largest facility.
On Monday, the Iranian state-owned ISNA news agency said that the UAE was one of a number of countries that was refusing to provide fuel to Iranian passenger aircraft as a result of recent UN sanctions on the country.
Iran has been subject to a series of economic measures that are part of US-led efforts to prevent the alleged development of nuclear weapons by the Islamic Republic.
“Since last week, our planes have been refused fuel at airports in Britain, Germany and UAE because of the sanctions imposed by America,” Mehdi Aliyari, secretary of the Iranian Airlines Union, told ISNA.
“Refusing to provide fuel to Iranian passenger planes by these countries is violation of international conventions.”