By Xinhua,
Stockholm : U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday that the international community’s priority for Iraq is not financial assistance, but capacity building.
“The Iraqis don’t need large sums of money. They do need large infusions of technical assistance, project support, helping to build an adequate police force, helping to build an adequate justice system, helping to build a capacity to execute their large budgets, down to the provincial and local levels,” Rice told reporters after meeting with Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt.
“Iraq is increasingly a functioning state. The question is: can it be a capable and functioning state?” asked Rice, who is in Stockholm for an international conference on Iraq later Thursday.
Rice’s comments echoed an Iraqi government report prepared for the so-called Iraq Compact review conference.
The 75-page report, prepared by Iraq’s finance and development ministries, said Iraq has enough economic resources — oil and natural gas reserves — and that the country does not require extensive financial assistance.
It asked for development partnerships and technical assistance instead.
Rice called for more efforts from the international community to help Iraq with capacity building.
“Now that the security situation is improving, I would hope the international community would accelerate efforts to help make Iraq a capable state,” she said.
The review conference is the first international gathering on Iraq following the International Compact with Iraq conference in Egypt a year ago.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, as well as delegations from some 90 countries, will attend the one-day conference.