Captured in July as the Grace I and renamed the Adrian Darya-1 after its release, an Iranian oil tanker has finally made its delivery, according to the Iranian Foreign Ministry, who termed the oil “sold.”
The tanker was held for weeks in Gibraltar, and ultimately released on
the promise it wouldn’t go to Syria. The US had tried to get the ship
given to them, unsuccessfully, and also tried to bribe the captain to
hand it over.
US officials are vowing to sanction whoever ended up buying that oil,
but that may not be a simple task since it isn’t entirely apparently
who that actually was, and Iran probably isn’t going to volunteer that
information.
Suspicions are necessarily that Syria ended up getting the oil, both
because they were who wanted it in the first place and because one of
the last sightings of the tanker was near their coastline. Iranian
officials had indicated they might take it to Turkey, however, so this
is hardly proof of guilt.
Even if it turned out Syria did buy the oil, US options are practically
nil, since the US already sanctions both Iran and Syria about as much as
possible.
Iran Oil Tanker Has Sold Its Oil
US vows to sanction whoever bought it
Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.
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