Iraq - Iraq began to close off its UN-controlled oil exports yesterday in an apparent attempt to push the UN Security Council into removing the sanctions it imposed on Iraq in 1990 over the Gulf War.
Western diplomats shrugged off the move as "self-defeating." An oil industry spokesman said that if supplies of Iraqi crude dried up in the present "extremely tight market", oil prices might rise sharply.
The UN spokesman, Mr Fred Eckhard, said the flow of crude through the 960 km (600 mile) pipeline from Kirkuk to the Turkish port of Ceyhan ceased yesterday morning.