US intercepts an Iraqi ship inside Iraqi territorial water

Iraq on Thursday announced that the US had intercepted an Iraqi ship in June inside the Iraqi territorial waters.

In a message handed by the Iraqi permanent representative at the UN Muhammad al-Douri to the UN secretary general Kofi Annan, Iraq stressed that two gun-ships of the US forces escorted by a helicopter broke on June 9, a container for transporting the Iraqi commodities, just one mile far from the Iraqi al-Ameeq ( the deep) port and held its crew to the south of al-Baker port for three and a half hours.

Al-Douri stressed that what was done by the American forces was a flagrant violation to Iraq's sovereignty, an armed aggressive act which constitutes a violation to the UN charter and the principles of the international law. He called on the UN to interfere to prevent such violations.

Al-Douri stressed that Iraq preserves its full right to taking necessary measures to defend its territorial sovereignty and waters and to ask for material and morale compensation inflected on it as a result of these " aggressive acts," according to UN principles.