Iran said on Sunday that its oil tanker Adrian Darya 1, which was detained by Britain off Gibraltar in July for allegedly breaking EU sanctions on Syria and was released in mid-August, had unloaded its oil after docking somewhere in the Mediterranean region.
“The Adrian Darya oil tanker finally docked on the Mediterranean coast ... and unloaded its cargo,” Iran’s state news agency IRNA quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi as saying.
The tanker, which went dark off Syria last week, has been photographed by satellite off the Syrian port of Tartus.
Iran said in late August that it had sold the oil on the Adrian Darya 1 and the purchaser would decide the destination of the cargo.
Last month, the US Treasury blacklisted the tanker.
“This is not just about the tanker. It is a sharp warning to any company in the world,” Sigal Mandelker, US Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, told reporters.
“Companies and governments understand that between the choice of doing business with Iran or doing business with the US it’s a no-brainer,” he added.
On September 3, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Tehran will never hold bilateral talks with the United States but if it lifts all the sanctions it reimposed on Iran it can join multilateral talks between Iran and other parties to the nuclear agreement.
