The International Compact with Iraq (ICI) launched on Thursday at the ICI conference held in Egypt's Red Sea resort Sharm el-Sheikh represented a road map for the next five years aimed at helping Iraq achieves its goals of economic prosperity, political stability and lasting security.

Proposed to be co-chaired by Iraq and the UN, with the support of the World Bank, the initiative offers benchmarks for economic integration, increased security and good governance in the war- torn country.

The main points of the ICI are new laws to pave the way for provincial polls, bring back into public life officials of the former Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein and set rules to share oil revenues.

Building up Iraqi security forces and their capabilities, forming a mechanism to deal with human rights issues and consolidating the base of transparency and accountability are also the purposes of the ICI.

The ICI also aims to study and identify the various forms of investments, financial aid, debt exemptions and technical and administrative support measures required by the Iraqi government.

The ICI was initially launched in July 2006, in the hope of creating "a permanent partnership between Iraq and the international community" to help Iraq in its reconstruction efforts and to pursue political, economic and social development over the next five years.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his government is mainly responsible to implement the ICI, which will need periodic consultations among all related parties to monitor and safeguard the Iraqi government to meet its commitments and benchmarks as well as to guarantee the inflow of aid pledged by donors.

Source: Xinhua