The United States on Tuesday proposed lifting a UN embargo on Liberian timber exports as the UN Security Council eased a separate ban on weapons sales to the West African nation so it could arm newly trained security forces.

A draft resolution circulated by Washington in the 15-nation Security Council would end the timber ban imposed in 2003 and leave it to the Liberian government to regulate exports.

President of Liberia Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf speaks to the UN Security Council at United Nations Headquarters in New York, March 17, 2006. [Reuters]

Liberia's new president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, imposed a moratorium on timber exports and new timber concessions on June 10 pending adoption by the Liberian legislature of a new law regulating the market.

A separate UN embargo on Liberian diamond exports would not be immediately affected. But the US draft, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, would extend that embargo just four more months in hopes Liberia would qualify by then for participation in the Kimberly Process.

The certification scheme, set up by the diamond trade in January 2003, seeks to guarantee that participating nations are not dealing in illicit diamonds financing local resource wars.

In easing the arms embargo, the council on Tuesday unanimously adopted another U.S.-drafted resolution allowing weapons sales to security and police officers trained since October 2003 as well as members of Johnson-Sirleaf's own security detail.

Johnson-Sirleaf, who in January became Africa's first elected female head of state, told the council in a May 24 letter that Liberia would find it hard to fight poverty and provide social services unless the diamond and timber embargoes were ended.

Council members have insisted that, before acting on the other embargoes, necessary controls be put into place to ensure that any exports of Liberian resources end up benefiting the people of Liberia rather than corrupt politicians.

Johnson-Sirleaf took over from a transitional government installed in 2003 after former President Charles Taylor fled into exile in Nigeria, ending 14 years of sporadic civil war in the impoverished West African nation of 3.2 million people.

Taylor has since been turned over to a UN-backed tribunal in neighboring Sierra Leone, where he has pleaded innocent to 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The Security Council imposed a ban on Liberian timber and diamond exports as well as an arms embargo during Taylor's final years in office after accusing him of fueling conflict in the region through an illicit trade in arms for diamonds and other natural resources.