UN extends Iraq sanctions for 60 days

New York - The UN Security Council yesterday voted to extend sanctions imposed on Iraq for an additional 60 days, diplomats said…

New York - The UN Security Council yesterday voted to extend sanctions imposed on Iraq for an additional 60 days, diplomats said. The acting council president, the Portuguese ambassador, Mr Antonio Monteiro, said after the closed-door meeting that there was no consensus to modify the sanctions.

The council action took place on the same day as Mr Richard Butler, the head of the UN's Special Commission on Iraqi disarmament (UNSCOM), said Iraq had succeeded in arming warheads with a deadly nerve gas. Mr Butler presented to the council the results of analyses he said proved that Iraq equipped missiles with the lethal VX nerve gas before the Gulf War.

Baghdad has consistently denied producing VX and is questioning the analyses carried out by a US army laboratory on warhead fragments recently excavated by UN experts, which revealed traces of VX disulfide and stabilizer.

Additional tests are under way in laboratories in France and Switzerland, UN diplomats said yesterday.