New oil-for-food agreement to be signed on Monday

Iraq's ambassador at the UN Muhammad al-Douri has stated that signing a memorandum between Iraq and the UN to extend working in the "oil for food" program for an additional five months, will be probably waiting until next Monday.

News reports quoted al-Douri as saying that his country proposed a new formula for the memorandum of understanding and it is waiting for the comments of the UN on it.

For their part, officials at the UN said on Friday that the gap between the two sides is small and they will sign the memorandum very soon in remarks to the fact that signing of the memorandum of understanding needed exchanging many messages.