Iraq set to attend OPEC meeting

Iraq set to attend OPEC meeting

DUBAI: OPEC member Iraq is set to attend the country's first
postwar oil cartel meeting next week, giving further
international recognition to Baghdad's U.S.-backed Governing
Council.

"Dr Ibrahim (Bahr al-Uloum) and a delegation are going to
Vienna," a source close to Uloum, the Iraqi oil minister, told
Reuters. He did not say whether Baghdad would hold full voting
member or observer status at the Sept. 24 meeting.

The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
had barred founding member Iraq from its sessions, insisting it
would only welcome a representative from a government recognised
by the United Nations.

But most OPEC members softened that stance after Arab League
foreign ministers let the Governing Council take Iraq's vacant
seat at talks last week in Cairo. -- Reuters