PRAGUE, July 14 (Reuters) - Czech Republic has signed a deal allowing the sale of 13 subsonic L-159 combat jets to a private company in the United States for up to 250 million crowns ($12.42 million), the Defence Minister  Martin Stropnicky said on Monday.     U.S. firm Draken International placed a binding bid last November to buy 14 of the L-159 planes with an option for 14 more.      The planes will be sold by a private company, Aero Vodochody, as the Czech law does not allow the Defence Ministry to sell its equipment directly.  
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        The Czech Republic has been trying for years to offload at least some of the military's 36 surplus planes.     In another transaction, still in talks, Czechs could sell another 12 L-159 planes to Iraq, but that is uncertain due to the unstable situation in the countryaggravated by the Islamist-led insurgency which swept through Sunni provinces of northern Iraq last month.  
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         The deal signed on Monday includes a possibility to lower the number of planes in the Draken option, which would leave the Czech Army with enough planes to potentially sell to Iraq.      The L-159 are light combat planes that are mostly intended for training. The Czechs have so far failed to sell any of them to foreign armed forces.     Aero Vodochody, the original maker of the L-159s as well as older L-39 that were sold to many foreign markets, is owned by Czech-Slovak group Penta Investments. ($1 = 20.1300 Czech Crowns)   (Reporting by Robert Muller, editing by Louise Heavnes)  ((robert.muller@thomsonreuters.com)(+420224190475)(Reuters Messaging: robert.muller.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))  Keywords: CZECH JETS/DRAKEN