Stars and Stripes - Iraq is close to finalizing a deal that will allow it to import Iranian energy despite American sanctions by avoiding the U.S. dollar, an Iraqi official said.

"A big delegation came from the Iranian central bank and the idea was proposed to trade with Iran in euros," Abdulkarim Hashim Mustafa, special adviser to Iraq's prime minister, said in an interview Tuesday in Moscow on the sidelines of a Middle East conference hosted by the Kremlin-backed Valdai discussion club. "There are other ideas to pay in Iraqi dinars, or in oil."