MOSCOW, Dec 19: Russia and the United States opened negotiations here on Wednesday over a new sanctions regime for Iraq designed to prevent Baghdad from importing items with military potential.

US officials said that Washington was represented by Assistant Secretary of State John Stern Wolf. The Russian side was led by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ordzhonikidze at the two-day talks.

The consultations were expected to focus on the formation of a new goods review list that would go into effect when the current Iraqi oil-for-food programme expires on May 30, 2002.

The programme was set up five years ago to alleviate the impact of UN sanctions on the Iraqi people.

After initially refusing to support the review, Russia said it would support the initiative while stressing the importance of persuading Baghdad to allow the United Nations to resume arms inspections.

UN inspectors were withdrawn from Iraq in December 1998, on the eve of a bombing campaign by US and British warplanes, and were not allowed to return.

Russia has expressed concern that an “artificial” barrier on sales of goods to Iraq would hurt its economic relations with its Soviet-era ally, which has accumulated an eight-billion-dollar debt to Moscow.—AFP