Iraq has accepted UN Resolution 1409 on a six-month extension of oil-for-food deal, Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said Thursday.
"Iraq will deal with UN Resolution 1409 adopted by the Security Council on renewing the oil-for-food program for another six months," Sahhaf was quoted by the official INA news agency as saying.
The decision was made after President Saddam Hussein chaired a joint meeting of the decision-making Revolutionary Command Council and the ruling Arab Baath Socialist Party, the INA said.
A statement issued after the joint meeting also called for lifting the sanctions and abolishing the two no-fly zones set up in northern and southern Iraq by the US-led Western allies after the 1991 Gulf War
As an exception to the sanctions imposed on Iraq in 1990 for its invasion of Kuwait, the UN oil-for-food deal allows Iraq to sell oil and use part of the oil proceeds, under UN supervision, to buy food, medicine and other basic necessities to offset the impact of the sanctions.
Every contract Iraq signed with other countries under the oil-for-food deal must be vetted and approved by the UN Sanctions Committee, in which the United States and Britain have been dominant members.
Iraq has often blasted the inefficiency of the humanitarian deal and blamed the sanctions for the deaths of 1.6 million people, mostly children and the elderly.
To ease international criticism over the sanctions and speed up the cumbersome vetting procedures of the UN Sanctions Committee, the United States and Britain drafted a 300-page goods review list which was adopted by the UN to allow Iraq freely import civilian goods while tightening the inflow of military or potential military materials to Iraq.
The UN Security Council also renewed the oil-for-food deal for another six months till November 25.
Saddam on Wednesday chaired a meeting attended by senior officials such as Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz, Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf and Foreign Minister Naji Sabri Ahmed to discuss the official response toward the biggest overhaul of the sanctions regime in years.
In the past, Iraq halted its oil exports time and again to protest the sanctions.
(Xinhua News Agency May 17, 2002)
