TOKYO, Oct 14 (AFP) - Iraq's donors said Thursday the insurgency in the country was the biggest obstacle to reconstruction, as the interim government appealed for firmer world support for historic elections in January.
A joint statement by the 57 countries and institutions at the two-day meeting in Tokyo urged faster aid to Iraq, as much of the pledged assistance has been held up because of the widespread violence.
"We identified security as the biggest challenge to be overcome," said Japanese envoy Akio Shirota, who chaired the conference.
"That led to detailed discussions on ways and means to bring about the nationwide elections on time," Shirota told reporters. "Very strong wishes to bring about the elections are expressed by donors."
Ross Mountain, the UN deputy special representative to Iraq, said security would be a key to success in the January elections.
"Security for the electoral commissions, security for the six, nine thousand electoral workers, security for candidates to campaign, security of the ballots when they are moved back to be counted -- security is going to be extremely important," Mountain told a separate news conference.
The donors' joint statement said that while some projects in Iraq are showing results, some "priority projects could not be financed without additional funding".
Donor nations called on one another and the rest of the international community to "come forward with additional funds" to help Iraq.
The Tokyo conference was not designed to secure new pledges, but the European Commission nonetheless announced it would offer another 200 million euros (247 million dollars) for reconstruction, subject to EU approval in the 2005 budget.
The proposed contribution comes on top of 302 million euros the European Commission provided to Iraq in 2003-2004, a Commission statement said.
Iran also pledged 10 million dollars to rebuild its neighbour and former rival.
Denmark promised 22 million krone (3.6 million dollars), New Zealand offered about one million US dollars and South Korea offered an unspecified amount, said a senior US official who took part in the Tokyo talks.
The US official said international donors had since last year pledged to Iraq a total of 34 billion dollars -- of which only 4.3 billion has been spent.
Of the money that has been disbursed, a full three billion dollars of it has come from the United States, the official said.
The Tokyo conference was the fourth donors' meeting since the fall of Saddam Hussein last year and the first since the interim government took over from US-led forces in June. The next conference will be held in Jordan in the spring.
Iraq's interim government said elections in January were crucial to reconstruction and needed more international support.
"This will be a major turning point for the history of Iraq," Iraqi Planning Minister Mehdi al-Hafez said of the polls.
The aim was to create a "parliamentary government and democratic community". "We are looking forward for the support of the international community," he said.
The European Commission said 30 million euros of its contribution was being devoted to building Iraq's electoral process. Japan said Wednesday it was setting aside for the election 40 million dollars of its five billion dollars in pledges.
US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage on Wednesday urged other countries to boost funding for infrastructure projects as Washington had last month shifted 3.46 billion dollars away from reconstruction, with most of it going to fight insurgents.