VOL. XL

No. 32

11 August 1997

IRAQ

Iraqi Oil Sales On Track For Mid-August Despite PoliticalBlock Against British And Japanese Buyers

Political timebombs are never far removed from the scene where Iraq is concerned, butthe political dimension surfaced in a rather unexpected way last week in the negotiationsbetween Iraq and its customers for resumed oil sales under the UN oil-for-food program.The nub of the matter is that Iraq's state oil marketing organization SOMO - obviouslyunder instructions...