The Iranian foreign ministry disclosed oil supertanker at the center of a dispute with Washington has delivered its cargo but did not mention a buyer.
An Iranian oil tanker, Adrian Darya, reason for a major diplomatic spat between Washington and Tehran, reached its destination and sold its cargo, Iran’s foreign ministry said, amid accusations the vessel was trading crude to Syria in violation of EU Sanctions.
“The Adrian Darya oil tanker finally docked on the Mediterranean coast and unloaded its cargo,” Iran’s state news agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi on Sunday.
Adrian Darya 1 is an escaped Iranian vessel which was earlier seized by the British officials in Gibraltar, believed to have been carrying oil to Syria, which is, according to authorities is a violation of European Union sanctions on Syria.
After 6 weeks of detention, the Gibraltar court decided to release the tanker after Iran’s written guarantee that the Grace 1 (now named as Adrian Darya 1) would not be sailing to countries on the European Union sanctions list, after departing from the port.
Washington had attempted to extend the detention period of Grace 1, making a last-minute call, on the basis of having its links to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which it has declared a terrorist organization. A
The ship was blacklisted by Washington and it also turned off the tracker that made it harder to monitor its maneuverability and location.
Recently, the images from US company Maxar Technologies appeared to show the tanker very close to the Syrian port of Tartus on 6 September.
US National Security Adviser John Bolton tweeted that anyone who believed the ship was no longer headed for Syria was “in denial”.
“Right now it’s parked right outside of Syria,” Sigal P Mandelker, a US Treasury official, told the middle-eastern journalists. “So it’s yet another game of deception that we see them engaged in that we think the world needs to open its eyes to.”
