Iraq repeats amnesty offer to illegal emigrants

BAGHDAD (Reuters) -- Iraq on Sunday repeated an offer of amnesty to those who have left the country illegally.

Iraq's highest legislative authority, the Revolutionary Command Council, issued a decree in July 1999 granting amnesty to illegal emigrants.

Munthir al-Mutlaq, head of the Consulate Department at the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, said the decree had once again been distributed to all Iraq's diplomatic missions abroad and issued on the Internet at the ministry's web site.

"The decree gives all those who left the country due to the sanctions imposed on Iraq or for other reasons the chance to return to their country," he said in a statement carried by the Iraqi News Agency.

No official figures on illegal emigration are available, but U.N. economic sanctions imposed for the 1990 invasion of Kuwait have prompted many ordinary Iraqis and intellectuals to leave and seek jobs elsewhere.

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