Iranian tanker switches destination, heads to Turkey

GENEVA: Iran has test fired a new missile, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Major General Hossein Salami, said on Saturday, according to the Tasnim news agency.

“Our country is always the arena for testing a variety of defense and strategic systems and these are nonstop movements towards the growth of our deterrent power,” Salami said. “And yesterday was one of the succesful days for this nation.” He did not provide any additional information about the missile. US President Donald Trump pulled out of an international agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme last year and stepped up sanctions on Tehran in order to curb its development of ballistic missiles and its support for proxies in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq. The two have been exchanging threats since then. ATHENS: An Iranian tanker at the centre of a confrontation between Washington and Tehran has switched destination and is now heading to Turkey instead of southern Greece, data from real-time ship tracking website Marinetraffic showed on Saturday.

The Adrian Darya, formerly called Grace 1, was released from detention off Gibraltar after a five-week standoff over whether it was carrying Iranian oil to Syria in violation of European Union sanctions in mid-august. The United States, which says the tanker is controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, deemed a terrorist group by Washington, has told countries in the region not to assist it. Previous data had shown that the vessel, which is fully laden with oil, was heading to the port of Kalamata in Southern Greece. But new data from Marinetraffic on Saturday showed the vessel will now sail past Greece through the Mediterranean and dock at the southern Turkish port of Mersin on 31 August. Greece had said it would not offer any facilities to the tanker.