UPDATE 2-Britain accuses Iran of selling Adrian Darya 1 tanker oil to Syria

(Adds comment from U.S. State Department)
LONDON, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Britain's foreign minister on
Tuesday said Iranian tanker Adrian Darya had sold its crude oil
to the Assad regime in Syria, breaking assurances it had given
not to sell crude to the country.
The vessel, formerly named Grace 1, was seized by British
Royal Marine commandos on July 4 on suspicion of being en route
to Syria.
Gibraltar released it on Aug. 15 after receiving formal
written assurances from Tehran that the ship would not discharge
its 2.1 million barrels of oil in Syria.
But Britain's foreign office said in a statement it was
clear Iran had breached those assurances and that the oil had
been transferred to Syria.
"Iran has shown complete disregard for its own assurances
over Adrian Darya 1," foreign minister Dominic Raab said in the
statement.
"This sale of oil to (Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's)
brutal regime is part of a pattern of behaviour by the
Government of Iran designed to disrupt regional security."
The Trump administration last year unilaterally pulled out
of a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and Western powers, and is
pursuing a campaign to bring Iran's exports to zero.
Washington had warned any state against assisting the ship,
saying it would consider that support for a terrorist
organization, namely, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The U.S. State Department on Tuesday stopped short of
confirming whether Iran had sold the oil to Assad's regime, but
strongly suggested it had.
"As we have warned all along, the Iranian regime has once
again reneged on its assurances to the international community
about its intentions to transport illicit oil to the murderous
Assad regime," a department spokeswoman said.
Brian Hook, the State Department's top official on Iran,
sent emails to the Adrian Darya's captain on Aug. 26, saying the
Trump administration was offering him several million dollars to
steer the tanker to a country that would impound it on behalf of
Washington, a department spokesman confirmed. The emails to the
captain, first reported by the Financial Times, were among about
a dozen similar communications Hook had with other captains in
recent months.
Britain said it had summoned the Iranian ambassador to
condemn Iran's actions and would raise the issue at the United
Nations later this month.
"Iran's actions represent an unacceptable violation of
international norms," the statement said.