Switzerland's leading financial institution UBS will comply with an American request to transfer million-dollar Iraqi funds, frozen under the UN sanctions imposed after the 1991 Gulf War, to a US treasury fund. The bank spokesperson who confirmed the decision refrained from specifying the exact sum involved.
Last week, the US Treasury Department ordered 17 of the world's largest financial institutions, both in the United States and abroad, to transfer the frozen Iraqi assets to an account in New York’s Federal Reserve Bank.
The Bush administration has pledged to dedicate most of the $1.74 billion confiscated from frozen Iraqi deposits in various international accounts to the reconstruction of post-war Iraq and to humanitarian aid to the beleaguered nation. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
