The Iranian supertanker Adrian Darya I (formerly Grace 1) was detained in Gibraltar for six weeks before being allowed to leave on August 18. (Photo by Jorge Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images)

(CNSNews.com) – As the Iranian supertanker in a cat-and-mouse game with the United States plies its way across the eastern Mediterranean, destination undisclosed, the regime says its cargo of 2.1 million barrels of crude oil has been sold to an unnamed buyer.

It will be up to that buyer to decide the destination of the oil, regime spokesman Ali Rabiee told reporters, repeating Tehran’s criticism of the U.S. for “intervention in others’ internal affairs.” He would not identify the buyer or discuss the terms of sale, and denied knowledge of the destination.

In an effort to prevent Iran from offloading the oil in Syria, where the Assad regime is subject to U.S. and E.U. sanctions, Washington has been pressing countries in the Mediterranean not to facilitate the passage of the Adrian Darya I (formerly Grace I).

The ship was detained in the British territory of Gibraltar for more than six weeks on the basis of E.U. sanctions against Assad, but was released after Iran gave written assurances it would not make for Syria. A U.S. warrant for the apprehension of the vessel and its cargo failed in preventing its departure from Gibraltar on August 18.

Last week it had been bound for the Greek port of Kalamata – according to the course its crew input into its Automatic Identification System (AIS) – but as Greece under U.S. pressure showed no interest in aiding the ship the listed destination was changed to Mersin, a port in Turkey.

Unlike Greece, Turkey is not a member of the E.U., and so presumably it would be a less risky option for the Iranians.

Mersin is located just 60 miles from the Turkey-Syria border, and about 140 miles from Baniyas, the Syrian port which U.S. officials initially said was the tanker’s intended destination.

Mersin did not remain the listed destination in the Adrian Darya’s AIS data for long, however, before the crew changed the reading to “For Order,” which means no destination is being given.

As of early Wednesday, U.S. Eastern Time, the ship was moving at 8.3 knots in an easterly direction, located southeast of Crete, according to tanker-tracking data.

(Image: Google Maps)

Earlier, before the AIS designation had changed from “Mersin” to “For Order,” National Security Advisor John Bolton issued a warning on Twitter apparently directed at Turkey.

“All hands on deck in the campaign to stop Iran from funding terror, destabilizing the globe, and breaking international sanctions,” he tweeted. “The illicit oil heading to Turkey on the Adrian Darya 1 must not be allowed off-loaded in port or at sea.”

According to U.S. court documents, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) “ultimately controls” the tanker. The Trump administration last April designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization, and the State Department has warned that any assistance given to the ship could constitute providing material support to an FTO, an offense in the U.S.

The U.S. action is designed both to deprive the Assad regime of oil and the IRGC of hard currency, as part of a declared policy of pressuring the regime into changing its behavior.

Senior Iranian Navy officers have confirmed a readiness to escort the tanker, if required by the country’s leadership, to safeguard it from any “possible illegal measures by foreign forces.”

The Iranian Navy has ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden to the south, according to Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari.

With its current load, the supertanker would be unable to traverse the Suez Canal without first offloading some or all of the oil.

That was the reason the ship’s original voyage took the long route from the Gulf to the Mediterranean around the tip of Africa, which was why it was in the vicinity of Gibraltar in the first place when British Royal Marines and Gibraltar personnel boarded it on July 4.