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