RIYADH, 20 June — Baghdad and the United Nations have reached agreement on the reopening of the main Saudi-Iraqi border crossing at Arar, according to Dr. Abdul Rahman Al-Zamil, chairman of the executive council of the Exports Promotion Center.

He said he had received a telegram from Commerce Minister Osama Faqeeh confirming that the Iraqi government had given the UN Secretariat General a positive response to the reopening of Arar, which remained closed since the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

"The United Nations foresees the reopening of the crossing on the Iraqi side in a month or two at the latest," he said.

"Iraq also agreed on UN monitors to be posted on the Iraqi side" to supervise the imports under the oil-for-food program, a request Baghdad had so far rejected, he added.

The border post was due to have opened for trade in the beginning of this month, but Iraq and the United Nations, which supervises all imports into the sanctions-hit country, disagreed on the deployment of monitors.

Calling the Iraqi decision a "positive step" toward Saudi Arabia, Zamil urged the Saudi government to "sign a free-trade agreement with Iraq."

Iraq has already signed free-trade accords with Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

Zamil also said that a large delegation of Saudi businessmen will take part in the next Baghdad international fair scheduled for November.

Dr. Saleh Al-Barrak, director of Saudi Customs Department, said trucks carrying Saudi goods will be allowed to cross the border once the Iraqi customs officials are ready to receive them.

He said there was no direct contact between his organization and the Iraqi customs department.

Products from Gulf countries as well as transit goods from East Asian countries will benefit from the opening of Arar crossing.

Over the past 12 years the border post was opened only occasionally to allow Iraqi pilgrims into the Kingdom. Saudi exports to Iraq under the oil-for-food program are now sent through Jordan.

Iraqi Trade Minister Muhammad Mahdi Saleh has said that Baghdad has imported products worth more than $1 billion from the Kingdom under the program introduced in 1996.