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Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Jieyi Attends the First Annual Review Conference of the International Compact with Iraq
2008-05-30 00:00

The First Annual Review Conference of the International Compact with Iraq (ICI) was held in Stockholm, Sweden, on 29 May 2008. Iraqi Prime Minister Noori K. Al-Maliki, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt co-chaired and addressed the opening ceremony of the conference. About 80 countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Slovakia, Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Turkey and Japan as well as a dozen of international organizations such as the United Nations, the League of Arab States, the World Bank and the Gulf Cooperation Council sent delegations to the conference. Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Jieyi also headed a Chinese delegation to the session.

Speaking at the conference, Liu noted that the launch of the ICI marks the establishment of a new type of partnership between the international community and Iraq. Over the past year positive results have been achieved of implementing the goals of the Compact and the international community fulfilled its commitment of helping Iraq integrate into the international community. However, Iraq still faces huge challenges. We hope to see Iraq as a positive force for regional peace, stability and development and the international community should make joint efforts in that direction.

He said that China supports accelerating the development of Iraq's security force which should be fully capable of implementing the responsibility of maintaining national security, hopes that Iraq will continue to push forward the equal, open and tolerable dialogue so that its national reconciliation will proceed firmly on a peaceful track and its rich resources can be further tapped to promote the long-term development and benefit the Iraqi people effectively, openly and transparently, appeals the international community to continue to cooperate with Iraq and support the role of the United Nations and encourages Iraq to expand cooperation with its neighboring countries. China will spare no efforts to support and actively participate in the reconstruction of Iraq.

Launched at Sharm el-Sheikh in May 2007, the ICI defines the 5-year development goals and action plans for Iraq in such priority fields as politics, security, economy and society and calls on the international community to increase investment and technical assistance in and reduce and cancel debts with Iraq and build a new type of partnership between the international community and Iraq. According to the ICI, each year a conference will be held to review its implementation.

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