Iraq accused the US Navy on Sunday of intercepting a cargo ship loaded with sugar, imported under the UN oil-for-food program, said reports.
The ship, with its cargo of 13,000 tons of sugar, was intercepted in Gulf waters on July 2, a commerce ministry spokesman told AFP, without giving the nationality of the vessel.
The spokesman charged it was a "new act of piracy" and proof that the United States "scorns the international laws and conventions that it pretends to defend."
In Bahrain, Cmdr. Jeff Gradeck, spokesman for the US Navy's 5th Fleet, which enforces sanctions in the Arabian Gulf, could not immediately confirm the Iraqi claim, when contacted by AFP and the Associated Press.
Baghdad also accused the United States of intercepting an Iraqi cargo ship in Iraq's territorial waters in the Gulf last month, calling for the United Nations to stop such actions.
A US-led multinational fleet patrols Gulf waters to enforce a UN embargo slapped on Iraq for its August 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Ships are often intercepted leaving Iraq, to guard against smuggling of Iraqi oil products outside the confines of the UN oil-for-food program, which authorizes Baghdad to export crude and buy humanitarian supplies with the earnings – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
