Iraq resumed the export of oil through the port of Ceyhan in southern Turkey on Saturday following renewal by the United Nations of the oil for food programme last month, a spokeswoman for the Turkish state oil and gas company Botas told AFP on Monday.
"An oil tanker arrived at the Ceyhan terminal on December 30 and the load was handled," she said."So the pumping of oil has been resumed," she said.
Iraq had resumed the exporting of oil on December 13 from its terminal of Mina Al-Bakr in the south after a 12-day suspension owing to disagreement between the United Nations and Baghdad which demanded that clients pay 40 cents per barrel into an account not controlled by the UN.
The humanitarian programme of oil for food, an exception to an embargo imposed against Iraq after it had invaded Kuwait in 1990, has authorised Iraq since the end of December 1996 to sell oil to obtain vital products such as food and medicines.—AFP.
©--Agence France Presse.
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
