Berlin blocks over four billion euros of Libyan state funds
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Berlin, April 16, IRNA -- The German government has frozen 4.15 billion euros of Libyan state funds over the past weeks, the Hamburg-based weekly news magazine Der Spiegel said Saturday.
The figure appeared in a memo written by Economics Minister Rainer Bruederle, demanding that all assets of Libyan dictator Moammar Qadhafi seized in the Europe Union should be given to the United Nations.
'The UN could use it to pay for humanitarian deliveries to alleviate the population's hardship in all of Libya,' the minister wrote.
The minister was reportedly calling for a EU initiative to allocate Libya's seized state assets to a UN trust fund.
Bruederle urged also in the memo that the European bloc should permanently withhold assets of the Qadhafi regime.
'The EU states need to act together,' Bruederle was quoted saying in the memo.
The EU had stepped up its sanctions last month against the Libyan regime over its bloody crackdown of popular protests.
It froze the assets of a number of Libyan financial companies, among them the
Libyan Investment Authority which has a share in several firms based in several EU countries and the US.
The EU has imposed tough sanctions on Libya which included an asset freeze, weapons embargo and visa bans on regime leaders, among them Qadhafi.
The EU punitive measures against Libya followed the approval of UN Security Council sanctions.
OT**1416
Islamic Republic News Agency/IRNA NewsCode: 30341509
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