By NNN-KUNA,
Stockholm : Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa has affirmed it was imperative to boost the capabilities of the Iraqi forces in their endeavour to restorel peace, security and stability in the country.
Addressing the conference on the international covenant on Iraq Thursday, Moussa pledged the readiness of the Arab League to take part in the progress of the political process in that country, while underscoring the role of the United Nations in helping Iraq get up on its feet.
Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister Burham Saleh, in a similar speech at the conference, noted that his nation in the past few years successfully bypassed what could have potentially been an internecine civil war among conflicting factions and sects with uprecedented consequences to the entire nation.
The majority of the Iraqi people, he said, have been able over the past five-year period to spurn violence and lawlessness and support all efforts at achieving peace, security and progress.
Among areas Iraq has done well in — in the past five years — have been in reconstruction, fighting governmental corruption, promoting human rights and a national dialogue among sects and ethnicities, boosting the economy, and buttressing legislative achievements, said Saleh.
On her part, World Bank Vice President Daniella Grisani, in a similar speech to the conference here, confirmed the achivements of the Iraqi government over the past year, but suggested more attention to economic issues and to upgrading the legislative institutions, and improving the output of the energy sector and boosting the role of the private sector in the national economy.
Though she acknowledged that the economy had done appreciatively well in the past year, especially in reducing inflation and joblessness and increasing oil exports, it only grew by an anaemic 2.8 per cent. More was needed to improve that, she said.