CAIRO: The International Compact for Iraq ended in Sharm El-Sheikh with a pledge by the attending countries to support the Iraqi government and additional pledges of aid and debt relief to the tune of 30 billion dollars. In the final statement of the conference, participating countries agreed to support the transfer of security matters into the hands of the Iraqi security forces. According to the statement, the countries would "renew their support for the government of Iraq s efforts to accelerate the preparedness of its armed forces to assume full security and defence responsibilities in their country. The EU Presidency released a statement on the day the Compact was launched saying "our main objective is to help Iraq implement the ambitious programme set out in the Compact and ensure that all Iraqis can benefit from Iraq s resources. "The EU underlines the importance it attaches to Iraqi leadership, ownership and inclusiveness of the Compact process, and to the broad involvement of the international community, including the active participation of Iraq s neighbors and partners in the region, the EU statement continued. The Compact's statement also alluded to the presence of foreign troops on Iraqi soil, referred to as "multi-national forces whose presence would not be "open-ended . As for the much vaunted expectations of American-Iranian meetings at the Compact, they were not "even worth mentioning, according to Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi. For their part, US officials downplayed the contacts with their Iranian counterparts. American Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker described the meetings as "not substantive and more indicative of the small talk held between representatives of the countries throughout the summit. The only optimist was Iraqi foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari who said the contacts were a "positive sign. "This is a process. It needs more work. There's a lot of suspicion. There's a lot of mistrust, Zebari said. The Compact's statement supported the democratic process in Iraq and condemned the violence ripping the nation. Thus, neighboring countries promised to attempt to prohibit the transport of fighters and weapons through their territories into Iraq.
