Tehran, August 15 (RHC)-- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says the United States has cooked up a story about the seizure of four tankers carrying Iranian gasoline bound for Venezuela after suffering an embarrassing diplomatic defeat at the United Nations Security Council which on Friday rejected its proposal to extend an arms embargo on Iran.

“Having suffered the political defeat, the Americans claimed to have seized four Iranian vessels in  international waters.  It however turned out later that neither were the tankers Iranian nor Iran-flagged.  It was all just fake news,” Rouhani said during a meeting of the National Headquarters for Managing and Fighting the Coronavirus in Tehran on Saturday.

The Wall Street Journal had on Thursday cited U.S. officials as saying that the US government had for the first time seized vessels allegedly carrying Iranian gasoline to Venezuela.  It said the US had recently seized four vessels, called Luna, Pandi, Bering, and Bella, on the high seas and they were being transferred to Houston, Texas.

Iran’s Ambassador to Venezuela Hojjat Soltani on Thursday rejected the report as another “lie” and an instance of “psychological warfare.”  “Neither the tankers are Iranian, nor their owner or flags have anything to do with Iran,” he said in a Twitter post.

Rouhani also strongly lambasted the UAE-Israel deal that will lead to full normalization of their diplomatic relations, warning Abu Dhabi about the consequences of allowing the Tel Aviv regime to secure a foothold in the region and wield influence.

The Iranian president noted UAE rulers have taken a wrong path to think that their security and economic growth would be ensured if they sided with the United States and the Israeli regime.

He denounced the UAE-Israel normalization agreement as a betrayal of the Palestinian cause, Muslim world as well as the issue of the occupied Jerusalem al-Quds.