By Irwin Arieff UNITED NATIONS, Oct 20 (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council on Friday left in place its embargo on Liberian diamond exports but is expected to review the matter by the end of the year, council diplomats said. Council members also affirmed a June decision lifting a ban on Liberian timber exports. That had been conditioned on the Liberian legislature's adoption of a new forestry law, which is now in place, the diplomats said. Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has pushed hard for an end to the diamond ban, saying the money from gem sales was badly needed to finance reconstruction in her war-ravaged West African country. The embargo was imposed in the final years of Liberia's 14-year diamond-fueled civil war, which ended in 2003. The council says it can lift the ban only after the government has in place the controls on gem sales demanded by the Kimberley Process. That initiative between governments, the diamond industry and civic groups aims to stem the flood of so-called blood diamonds -- rough diamonds used to finance wars against legitimate governments, as in Angola, Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone. Under the process, governments must provide certificates for exports of rough diamonds to show they were mined from legitimate operations. Danish U.N. Ambassador Ellen Margrethe Loj, head of the Security Council committee monitoring the sanctions, said the council had reviewed the government's progress and concluded more needed to be done, leaving the embargo in place until the end of the year. Council members urged Liberia to speed its efforts to put in place the needed management and verification mechanisms. "The members expressed their wish to lift the ban on diamonds as soon as possible so that revenues from the diamond sector can benefit the Liberian people," said Japanese U.N. Ambassador Kenzo Oshima, the council president for October.
