Iraq’s government spokesperson Haider al-Aboudi has said that Prime Minister Ali Faleh al-Zaidi has reached an understanding with the US to continue the shipment of cash dollars to Iraq.

Following the fall of President Saddam Hussein after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the country’s oil revenues were placed in a special account in the US, with money then transferred to Baghdad.

This transfer is renewed annually by the US president, with the stated purpose of safeguarding Iraq’s financial resources. But the system also gives Washington a large degree of oversight over the flow of dollars from the account to Iraq.

The US paused dollar cash shipments to Iraq in April, with some reporting indicating that this was linked to pressure over Iran-backed militias in Iraq, but some physical shipments resumed in July.