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Albright optimistic on Iraqi oil-for-food talks

OSLO: U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Madeleine Albright said on Friday she was "very optimistic" that oil-for-food talks between Iraq and the United Nations would be completed.

Albright, in Oslo on a one-day visit for talks with Norwegian leaders, said it was important that Iraq complied with U.N. Resolution 986 if it was to be allowed to sell oil to raise funds for the relief of its people.

"I am very optimistic frankly," she told a news conference when asked to assess the situation. "There are several points that many people have missed about this."

The troubled talks between Iraq and the United Nations adjourned on Wednesday and both sides said there would be a fourth round in New York next month.

Iraq has blamed the adjournment on the United States and Britain, which last week proposed changes in the plan that aims to allow Iraqi oil to flow for the first time since 1990.

Albright said the talks would resume in early May.

Iraq has been under stringent U.N. sanctions since invading Kuwait in August 1990. But the oil for food scheme would enable it to sell $2 billion of oil every six months in order to buy food, medicine and other humanitarian goods to help those worst hit by shortages.-Reuter