Iraq's commerce minister estimated Friday that the decade-old UN embargo against his country had cost the international community more than 200 billion dollars in lost trade.
"The countries of the world have lost more than $200 billion since the implementation of the unjust embargo," Mohammad Madhi Saleh said, quoted by the official news agency INA.
He gave a breakdown of almost $40 billion in lost earnings for Russia, $35 billion for France, almost $30 billion for Turkey and another $25 billion each for the United States, Britain and China.
Two-way trade with the United States had reached a level of five billion dollars a year before economic sanctions were imposed on Iraq for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, the commerce minister said. — (AFP, Baghdad)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
