Iranian tanker Adrian Daria I, released in Gibraltar last month, has unloaded its crude oil at a Syrian port, media reported.
The London-based Qatari-funded Middle East Eye website on Friday quoted private sources as saying 55 percent of the 2.1 million barrels of crude oil was unloaded last night.
The semi-official Iranian media, such as Fars and Tasnim, reprinted the news.
The report didn’t name the port where the tanker was unloaded, although US sources said the port is Tartous.
The tanker, which was then named “Grace-1”, was detained in early July by the authorities of Gibraltar with the help of Britain for allegedly transporting oil to Syria in violation of European sanctions imposed on the government of Damascus.
After five weeks of detention, the Gibraltar authorities released the tanker and announced that it had received assurances from Tehran that the ship would not go to Iran, but Tehran denied that.
Adrian Daria then flew to the eastern Mediterranean, repeatedly changing her route and then switching off the ship identification system earlier this September, which was then off the coast of Syria and Lebanon.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry announced that it had sold the cargo of oil carried by the tanker, and the buyer, who didn’t reveal his identity is to decide the destination of the ship.
