UN chief Ban Ki-moon said that debt reduction of 30 billion dollars had been pledged by countries attending a key conference on Iraq in this Egyptian Red Sea resort on Thursday. "Specific financial commitments by particular countries are estimated at over 30 billion dollars," Ban told reporters.
"This includes commitments of debt relief terms of the Paris Club from Bulgaria, China, Saudi Arabia and Greece. It also includes new financial commitments from the United Kingdom, Australia, Spain, China, Denmark and Korea and other key participants," he said.
In 2004 the Paris Club, a group of 19 creditor governments from major industrialised nations dealing with debt restructuring, agreed to cancel 32 billion dollars (80 percent) of the 40 billion dollars they were owed by the Saddam regime.
Iraqi officials were in talks with several countries on Thursday to write off billions of dollars in debts, and threatened to block investment opportunities for those who did not.
"Any country that is not scrapping debt or does not respect Paris Club recommendations will not be allowed to invest in Iraq," Finance Minister Bayan Jabr Solagh told AFP on the sidelines of the international conference. Jabr''s warning was chiefly aimed at Russia, to which he said Iraq owes around 13 billion dollars.
Moscow has reportedly said it was ready to scrap the debt in exchange for investment in the major southern Iraqi oil field of Rumaila. "Realising the strains caused by debt and due to the current circumstances in Iraq, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has announced its will to reduce Iraq''s official debt," Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said.
The oil-rich Kingdom is expected to forgive 80 percent of its estimated 20 billion dollars in loans to Iraq, but the process will take place in stages in line with Paris Club procedure, Solagh said. The conference also overwhelmingly adopted a five-year plan aimed at rescuing the war-ravaged country from chaos and bankruptcy.
But the wide-ranging commitment to the so-called "International Compact" at the meeting was overshadowed by rare meetings between US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and US foes Iran and Syria. "The resolution to support Iraq and to pull it out of its crisis has been adopted by acclamation by all the participants," the United Nations'' point man in Iraq Ashraf Qazi said, after the initiative was approved by consensus.
Foreign ministers and top diplomats from more than 50 countries were gathered in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to launch the International Compact with Iraq (ICI).
"The main aim of the International Compact is to rebuild a unified, democratic and federal Iraq and to distribute its wealth fairly," Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told delegates in opening remarks.
The document includes a raft of measures to give fresh impetus to Iraq''s economy, improve governance and offer financial assistance, in a process key players hope will bolster reconciliation between warring communities. It includes new laws on oil revenue sharing and on the return to public life of members of the late Saddam Hussein''s regime.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki had a brief exchange over lunch Thursday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said. "There was an exchange of some words, yes. They are civilised people after all," said Abul Gheit, adding that the lunch was attended only by foreign ministers.
When asked if Rice and Mottaki sat next to each other, he answered: "Beside each other you mean? No, but the table was a small table." Rice and Mottaki''s respective predecessors, Colin Powell and Kamal Kharazi, were placed next to each other during a meal at a similar conference in Sharm el-Sheikh in November 2004. However, officials had said afterwards that their exchange did not go beyond polite conversation.
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