Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

Turkish Min.: Iranian Tanker Headed to Lebanon


Fri 30 Aug 2019 | 01:10 PM
Basant ahmed

“An Iranian oil tanker, now in waters south of Turkey and at the center of a confrontation between Washington and Tehran, was heading for Lebanon”, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday, Reuters reported.

Tracking site Marine Traffic showed earlier on Friday that the Adrian Darya, formerly called Grace 1, had changed course again and was headed for the southeastern Turkish port of Iskenderun. Cavusoglu was speaking with reporters in Norway.

Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that it was unfortunate an Iranian oil tanker detained off Gibraltar had been allowed to leave.

“It’s unfortunate that that happened,” Pompeo told Fox News Channel. He added that if Iran is successful in making profit from the tanker’s oil cargo, its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps will have “more money, more wealth, more resources to continue their terror campaign.”

The Iranian tanker at the center of an angry confrontation between Iran and Washington sailed to Greece after it was freed from detention off Gibraltar, hence Washington called the release unfortunate and warned Greece and Mediterranean ports against helping the vessel.

A U.S. State Department official said Washington had conveyed its “strong position” to the Greek government, as well as to all ports in the Mediterranean about facilitating the tanker.

The official said assisting the ship could be considered providing support to a terrorist organization.

On the other hand, Tehran said any U.S. move to seize the vessel again would have “heavy consequences”. While Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif appeared to downplay the possibility of military conflict with Washington in an interview on U.S. television, he also indicated on a visit to Finland that Washington was seeking “more escalation”.

Zarif said in Finland: “We are happy this ordeal has ended and I hope this will lead to less escalation.”

He also said the U.S. warrant had no legal basis and was politically motivated to “make more escalation.”

But in an interview with “NBC Nightly News,” Zarif said Iran would not take military action to end its standoff with its longtime adversary.

“We will not. We have never done that, in the past 250 years. We have defended ourselves. And we have taught good lessons to those who invaded us,” Zarif said.

He also appeared to downplay the possibility of U.S. military action against the Islamic Republic in the interview, saying the U.S. habit of saying: “No option is off the table” in its approach to Iran was a violation of the U.N. Charter.