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Iraq Ready to Resume Oil Export: Official
Iraq is ready to resume oil export following a 150-day extension of the United Nations oil-for-food program, an Iraqi oil official has disclosed.
Iraq and the UN are discussing the resumption of oil export via the southern Iraqi port and the Turkish Mediterranean port of Cyhan, the official added, quoted by local media on Tuesday.
Iraq is able to provide more than 1 million tons of oil every day, he said, without revealing the resumption date.
He said that Iraq is ready to cooperate with the U.N. under the program after its extension, adding that Iraq is satisfied with indefinite postponement of a vote on the U.S.-backed "smart sanctions" draft resolution at a U.N. Security Council meeting.
Meanwhile, informed diplomatic sources in Baghdad told Xinhua that Iraq is expected to resume oil export on Tuesday or Wednesday.
The U.N. Security Council decided on Monday to indefinitely put off a vote on the new sanctions regime, given that Russia threatened to veto the plan, and to extend the U.N. oil-for-food program for 150 days starting from midnight.
กก The oil-for-food program implemented since 1996 allows Iraq to sell oil to buy U.N.-monitored food, medicine and other necessities to offset the impact of the decade-old U.N. sanctions.
กก On June 1, the U.N. Security Council decided to extend the oil- for-food program to July 3. Three days later, Iraq suspended its oil exports in protest of the one-month extension of the program, a move which Iraq claims was designed to pave the way for the adoption of U.S.-British "smart sanctions".
กก Iraq has strongly opposed the new version of the sanctions on Iraq, which would ease Iraqi import of civilian goods and tighten curbs on military-related materials.
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