May 24, 1999
Web posted at: 7:05 p.m. EDT (2305 GMT)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq's oil-for-food deal with the United Nations expired at midnight Monday without Baghdad's consent to renew the program for another six months.

The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Friday to allow Iraq to sell up to $5.26 billion of oil from May 25 to November 20. The oil revenues are used to pay for food, medicine and other humanitarian goods.

The Iraqi government has given no official word whether it will agree to a sixth installment of the program.

Iraqi Oil Minister Amir Muhammed Rasheed, attending an oil industry conference with other officials on Monday, declined comment.

Iraq has threatened to postpone or even halt the flow of oil unless the United Nations gives assurance the oil-for-food program is not a permanent substitute for the lifting of trade sanctions, in place since Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

"America and Britain want to make the oil deal a status quo and a replacement for lifting or easing the embargo," an Iraqi newspaper wrote last week.

Independent oil industry analysts said Iraq might delay an extension until the Security Council agrees to a set of guidelines for easing and eventually suspending the sanctions.

The United States and Britain have refused to consider lifting sanctions until it is proven that Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction.

The allies have launched almost daily airstrikes on Iraq since Baghdad barred U.N. weapons inspectors from the country last December.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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