By Xinhua,
Stockhlom : The international community opened a conference here Thursday to take stock of the situation in Iraq since the launch of the International Compact last year and to see what can be done in the future.
In his opening speech, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said the Iraqi government has made progress in the past year. However, challenges remain.
“The re-establishment of Iraq as a sovereign state with a democratically elected government is a great achievement. But the challenges — as well as the opportunities — are tremendous,” he told the conference.
He emphasized the importance of improved security in the country.
“Without improved security it is difficult to imagine a flourishing Iraqi society. The situation today is better than a year ago. But it is still fragile.”
He said national reconciliation, political compromises, imposition of the rule of law and increased respect for human rights are the only way to bring about improved security in Iraq.
Reinfeldt also asked Iraq to improve the humanitarian situation. Sweden now hosts some 40,000 Iraqi refugees, the largest number in any European country, and larger than in the United States, said the prime minister earlier on Thursday.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was upbeat about the progress Iraq has made in the past year.
“Indeed, notable progress has been made in all three pillars of the (International) Compact — in the security, political and economic fields, despite the challenges,” said Ban in his speech.
“If I were asked to use one word to describe the situation in Iraq today, I would choose the word ‘hope’.”
However, he warned that the security situation in Iraq remains fragile.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said shortly before the meeting 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 a meeting with 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 on 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 on Thursday 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.
“This is an opportunity for the international community to take stock of the situation in Iraq, to look at the obligations that the international community has undertaken as well as the obligations that Iraq has undertaken, to achieve the goal that we all share, which is a stable, democratic and peaceful Iraq that can be a good citizen in the region and a good citizen internationally.”
The review conference is the first global gathering on Iraq following the International Compact conference in Egypt a year ago. Apart from Ban, Rice and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, the Stockholm conference also attracted delegations from some 80 countries and representatives of a dozen international organizations.