jcarroll

The only thing I found in researching the UN and Iraqi sanctions, comes from an Iraqi independent news source: URGENT / UN lifts Iraq sanctions <http://en.aswataliraq.info/%28S%28tpc4vwerdzses1ilpiv5bo45%29%29/Default1.aspx?page=article_page&id=139814&l=1> 12/15/2010 8:24 PM BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden said on Wednesday that the United Nations Security Council decided to cancel all sanctions imposed on Iraq after invading Kuwait in 1990. The council also voted to return control of Iraq's oil and natural gas revenue to the government on June 30, 2011, and to terminate all remaining activities of the oil-for-food program which ran from 1996-2003 and helped ordinary Iraqis cope with sanctions. The council said it recognized "the positive developments in Iraq and that the situation now ... is significantly different from that which existed" after Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. It also recognized "the importance of Iraq achieving international standing equal to that which it held" prior to the invasion. Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Wednesday's meeting of the Security Council was "a historic session" since it ends an international embargo imposed on Iraq because of the wars started by Saddam's regime. Before the vote, Zebari called the lifting of the sanctions "the biggest political accomplishment for Iraq."