Paris (AFP)
The Iranian oil tanker Adrian Darya, suspected of transporting crude oil in Syria and whose US wants the boarding, "is not heading for Greece," said Thursday the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, visiting France.
Adrian Darya "is not heading for Greece and there is no application for a mooring permit in a Greek port," said Mitsotakis, interviewed on France24.
"What we do know is that the ship is not heading for a Greek port," added the Prime Minister without further details, visiting Paris where he is received by French President Emmanuel Macron.
The tanker, which carries 130,000 tons of crude oil, had indicated as destination Kalamata, in the south of the Greek peninsula of Peloponnese, but it is "too big to anchor in a Greek port," said Wednesday the Greek Deputy Minister Foreign Affairs, Miltiadis Varvitsiotis.
"If he enters Greek waters, he can only anchor offshore and then we will examine" the situation, he added in an interview with the Greek private television channel ANT1 .
Athens "does not wish in any way to facilitate the transport of oil in Syria," he insisted, noting that the Greek authorities had been "under pressure" from the United States.
Greek shipowners own the world's largest commercial fleet.
Immobilized since July 4 off Gibraltar, this ship had sailed on Sunday with official destination Kalamata.
According to the MarineTraffic tracking website, he was on Thursday off Skikda in eastern Algeria.
According to Greek experts interviewed by AFP, the tanker may want to transfer its cargo of crude oil to smaller tankers, a so-called "ship-to-ship" operation, which often takes place in international waters near Greece, Cyprus or Malta.
Cyprus would be an "alternative destination", reported Thursday the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), pointing out that the ship was running out of fuel.
But Cyprus was not willing to rescue the boat, according to industry professionals, quoted by the WSJ.
© 2019 AFP