The UN Security Council lifted on Friday a more than three-year-old ban on diamond imports from Liberia, applauding the government's cooperation with the "Kimberley Process," a mechanism set up to keep so-called "blood diamonds" from reaching world markets.

Unanimously adopting resolution 1753, the council terminated the measures on diamonds imposed in resolution 1521 passed in 2003,by which all states should prevent the direct or indirect import of all rough diamonds from Liberia to their territory, whether or not such diamonds originated in that country.

The termination would be reviewed in 90 days, after consideration of the report of the United Nations Panel of Experts on the matter and a report of the "Kimberley Process" on Liberia's application of its proposed Certificate of Origin regime.

The United Nations-backed Kimberley Process Certification Scheme of 2000 was designed to protect the legitimate diamond industry by stopping the marketing of "conflict diamonds" or "blood diamonds" -- the rough gems traded by rebels or their allies to finance violence. The initiative now governs diamond production and importation in 70 countries.

Trafficking in illegal diamonds is considered one of the root causes of the back-to-back civil wars in Liberia since 1989, as well as of the 10-year brutal conflict in neighboring Sierra Leone that ended in 2001.

(Xinhua News Agency April 28, 2007)