Iraq said yesterday it planned to resume oil exports in two to three weeks after the United Nations ended 13 years of crippling economic sanctions.
The US military set a deadline for Iraqis to hand in automatic and heavy weapons in a crackdown on lawlessness and the US civilian administration paid out the first government wages to Iraqis since the war that toppled Saddam Hussein.
"By two to three weeks Iraq will be back in the market," Thamir Ghadhban, director of the oil ministry and Iraq's de facto oil minister, told a news conference.
"It will take a few weeks but we should be producing 1.3 to 1.5 million barrels per day by the middle of next month," he said. Iraq has the world's second largest oil reserves.
The UN Security Council approved a US-drafted resolution on Thursday giving the US and Britain broad powers to run Iraq and its oil industry and ending 13 years of sanctions imposed after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.
The move, which allows the US and Britain to use Iraq's abundant oil resources to finance its reconstruction, paved the way for Baghdad to resume oil exports.
The US military, struggling to restore law and order, gave Iraqis three weeks to hand in automatic and heavy weapons as part of a campaign to impose law and order.
"Starting June 1, the people of Iraq will have a 14-day amnesty period to turn in unauthorised weapons to coalition forces at weapons control points here and throughout the country," the military said in a statement.
"After June 14, individuals caught with unauthorised weapons will be detained and face criminal charges."
After Saddam was toppled on April 9, there was widespread looting of public and private institutions and homes. Stolen weapons - from pistols and AK-47 assault rifles to anti-tank grenades - are sold on the streets at low prices.
Iraqis complain that with such anarchy and the abundance of weapons, the crime rate has reached unprecedented levels and security is at its worst in Iraq's modern history.
In another sign that life was slowly returning to normal, the US civil administration paid out the first government wages to Iraqis since the war, doling out dinars bearing Saddam's face to thousands of Baghdad electricity workers.
The almost 40,000 electricity employees are a top priority as they struggle to restore power to the capital.
They have been ambushed by looters stealing cables and equipment, a main factor that has delayed the return of essential services to the city of five million, Karim Hassan, now running Iraq's electricity commission, told Reuters.
In the northern city of Kirkuk, leading figures met to elect an interim provincial government which they hope will put an end to ethnic tensions in the region.
Looting and violence among the city's mix of Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens and Assyrians first erupted after troops loyal to Saddam fled the city six weeks ago.
Some 300 delegates were selecting a 30-member council which will choose a provincial governor on Tuesday - another key step in US efforts to establish local government after setting up a council in Iraq's third largest city Mosul earlier this month.
"These elections will help us find the best solution so that all the ethnic groups can live together in peace. As Saddam destroyed everything, we have to work hard at rebuilding," said Kemal Kerkuki, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party delegation.
Tension between Arabs and Kurds has been partly driven by disputes over land or property seized under Saddam's "Arabisation" campaign in the region. Many Kurds demand the right to return to homes from which he had them expelled.
In Baghdad, hundreds of sacked media employees gathered outside a US-established media outlet demanding jobs, a day after the US dissolved Saddam's information ministry.
The US civil administrator for Iraq, Paul Bremer, sacked more than 5,000 staff who used to run Iraqi media organisations, including state television and radio, when he abolished the ministry.
The decision was part of broader US moves to rid Iraq of links to Saddam's era. Bremer also dissolved the armed forces, several security bodies and the defence ministry on Friday, firing more than 400,000 employees.