Iceland votes on whether to resume EU membership talks

REYKJAVIK: Icelanders began voting on Saturday (Aug 29) in a referendum on whether to resume membership negotiations with the European Union, in a tight race that will be closely watched in Brussels.The country of just under 400,000 people applied to join the EU in the wake of a 2009 financial crisis that devastated its economy.The membership talks were suspended in 2013 when a eurosceptic government came to power.The referendum result is expected to go down to the wire, with the latest Gallup poll crediting the "No" camp with 51.6 per cent of voter support and the "Yes" side with 48.4 per cent, a gap within the statistical margin of error. "It's pretty tight, but I'm always optimistic," Foreign Minister Thorgerdur Katrin Gunnarsdottir, a staunch europhile, told AFP ahead of the vote. "It'