No immediate debt relief offered to Iraq

China ready to reduce debt
China’s Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, whose country is owed $8 billion, said Beijing “is ready to substantially reduce and forgive the debts owed by Iraq” and will forgive all government debts. He gave no figures.

Bulgaria, owed $4 billion, said it was finalizing “technical talks” with Iraq and then would consider a “realistic solution.”

New grants and soft loans also came in.

British Prime Minister Margaret Beckett promised some $400 million. Other pledges from South Korea, Australia, Denmark and Spain totaled about $280 million.

In New York, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. said the international community has been slow to live up to aid pledges in the past.

Zalmay Khalilzad, who until recently was the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, said most countries have not come through on $13.5 billion in pledges made at a 2003 donor’s conference in Madrid. “The record of delivering on the commitments by the international community ... has not been as good as we would like,” he told reporters at U.N. headquarters.

Strong demands of prime minister
Throughout Thursday’s session, Arab diplomats underlined their demands that al-Maliki do more to bring in Sunni Arabs, including changing the constitution and ending a purge of former members of Saddam’s ousted Baath party.

Al-Maliki promised Baghdad would fulfill its side of the bargain, acknowledging “the international compact cannot take its natural path” unless the Iraqis do their part to achieve national reconciliation. Still, some of the reforms face stiff opposition from al-Maliki’s allies in his Shiite-led coalition.

Nonetheless, Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh called it “a historic day for Iraq.”

“We go back to Baghdad with a message of hope, reinvigorated and feeling much more confident about the future,” he said.

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