Iraq to resume oil exports

UNITED NATIONS -- Iraq plans to resume oil exports after a month-long standoff, Iraq's U.N. ambassador said.

The Iraqi Ambassador Mohammed al-Douri to the U.N. said Baghdad would sign a memorandum of understanding extending the U.N. oil-for-food programme.

Iraq stopped exporting oil under the scheme -- designed so Baghdad can use some export sales to buy supplies for its civilian population -- when moves were made to revise the sanctions.

The ambassador said, "everything will be normalised," and Iraq would restore its oil exports to about two million barrels a day.

"Discussions are ongoing to resolve some technical issues," a U.N. spokesperson told the Associated Press on Thursday. Discussions are expected to continue on Friday, U.N. officials said.

Iraq halted exports on June 4 to protest against a U.S.-backed British proposal to overhaul economic sanctions imposed on the Iraqi nation after in invaded Kuwait in 1990.

The oil-for-food programme has lost $1.3 billion in the four weeks Iraq stopped its oil sales, according to U.N. estimates.

Facing a veto by Russia, Britain and the U.S. dropped the sanctions revision proposal on Tuesday and instead supported an extension of the oil-for-food programme.

The revised sanctions would have allowed more civilian goods into Iraq, while introducing measures to tighten the control of military supplies into the Arab nation.

Iraq had threatened to pull out of the oil-for-food programme if the resolution was adopted.

Oil-for-food, created in 1996 as an exemption to sanctions against Iraq, allows Iraq to export unlimited amounts of oil to buy food, medicine and other essentials including paying war reparations.